Denis MacShane is a former Minister of Europe and was a Labour MP for 18 years.
Can the oldest of all British political divides, Ireland, finally help take Labour over the line to understand that leaving the EU’s customs union and single market is a disaster, not only for British jobs and the tax revenue needed for decent public services, but that it can also destroy one of the last Labour government’s proudest achievements: the Northern Ireland peace process?
As Labour MPs begin to grasp how poisonous is the alliance between Theresa May’s English nationalist Brexit Tories and the unyielding Dublin-hating Ulster protestant supremacists in the Democratic Unionist Party one can see a visible re-think. In a partial U-turn, Barry Gardiner told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that staying in the customs union and single market were not “off the table”. In July, Labour’s trade spokesman, insisted in the Guardian that we should quit both.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, who understands Irish politics better than most ministers and MPs and has close links with the republican nationalist politicians, north and south of the border, also gave similar hints when interviewed by the ITV’s Robert Peston. Jeremy Corbyn himself has always been sympathetic to the republican side in Irish politics.
When May agreed with the EU that the three priorities of Article 50 negotiations would include a focus on guaranteeing the Good Friday peace agreement, she had no idea that within two months she would be in a parliamentary alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP are crudely using Brexit to end the peace process with the return of British customs control border posts on the currently open border in Northern Ireland.
The Irish question overwhelmed British politics from 1860 to 1922. It is now back with a vengeance. The difference between now and a century or more ago is that today there is a Labour Party with considerable sensitivity towards Irish politics and not a little pride in ending 30 years of armed conflict and terrorism on Good Friday 1998.
And Labour’s two main leaders, Corbyn and McDonnell, have spent a life in politics sympathetic to Ireland. So the logic of that politics which is shared by all Labour MPs, bar the ultra Ulster Unionist Kate Hoey, and also endorsed by Liberal Democrats and SNP MPs, is that the UK should not risk peace in Northern Ireland by leaving the customs union. And that decision would have the bonus of being welcomed by just about every business exporting and importing into the British Isles.
The Irish question could yet wreck the whole Brexit process. After all, the Tories and DUP are set on their mad course of action. But by driving Labour to a saner policy, it could also provide an escape from some of the craziness of Brexit and conceivably end the whole sorry business.
