1. We got Brexit seriously wrong before ‘People’s Vote’ was started
2. *The* biggest mistake came later
Let me explain 👇
We should have launched a cross-party programme to understand what Leave voters expected from Brexit and why Remain voters were anxious, then settled on a unifying way forward
Armed with this insight we can spot Labour’s 2nd big mistake...
But our leadership disagreed and whipped MPs heavily to vote against that option (I broke the whip).
This was another terrible missed opportunity. And then...
Again we were whipped to oppose. 5 frontbenchers were fired and I was disciplined for breaking the whip.
A month later it was Labour policy 🤦🏻♂️
Again we were whipped to oppose it
Labour missed several key opportunities to spell out a clear vision yet at the same time opposed everything from Tories & ideas from within the Labour movement
- We matched the Tory promise of the ‘exact same benefits’
&
- We will leave the Single Market & CU
You Can’t have *any* of the benefits outside SM & CU.
We fudged it
One shad cab member goes on TV saying we’re a Remain party, another goes on tv saying we’re a Leave party
By then the damage to Labour was done.
Leave voters thought we were a Remain party and Remain voters thought we were a Leave party.
It wasn’t that we were taking the wrong position that wound most people up, they told us it was we were taking *no* position, or every position in a single day, that was driving them to distraction.
What changed was the politics.
Our body politic screwed Brexit up and over time a majority of voters came to want another say
We didn’t get to this mess by accident, we were led here. But once here there was only one way out - putting the deal back to the public
Answer: supporting a general election before Brexit was resolved and Labour had the chance to head broader warnings about its appeal
At the time Corbyn was the most powerful LOTO since Atlee. It was he who would decide the timing of an election, not Johnson
Ian Lavery, chairman, said ‘we are the most election ready we’ve ever been’.
Jeremy promised our anti-austerity socialist platform would retake Scotland.
Most shadow cabinet encouraged it:
*This was our mistake*
I voted against A50 as govt weren’t ready.
I voted against the deal that would limit trade and travel and security.
But to bring it to resolution I would have allowed it to pass parliament in return for a confirmatory referendum
But from there most Labour MPs adapted as the politics shifted, I believe my voting record reflects that and I’m proud of it.
A referendum was avoidable but became necessary. Not delivering it was the mistake