This week in Brexitland, February 9, 2023

What happens to Brexit after the next general election?

As we appear to be on an inevitable course of 18-odd months of a zombie government trudging along waiting for a miracle to happen and save them from oblivion at the next general election, I thought I would examine how I think Brexit will start to look shortly after GE 2024/25.

For ease sake, I am assuming an outright Labour victory. I am doing this for several reasons. One, the most obvious, is because that is far and away the most likely result to occur. Two, if the Tories do somehow miraculously win it, I don’t need a whole article to tell you how Brexit goes from there: the same bullshit we are experiencing now, basically endless discussions with the EU that go nowhere fast, promises of “Brexit benefits” that never come to fruition. Brexit in limbo, you might say. Three, if there is a hung parliament with Labour being the largest party, I think that gets really messy in a hurry. I believe that such a result would mostly allow an unreconstructed Conservative party to get back into government in a couple of years time and basically just muddle along doing the same awful crap they are up to at the moment.

Right, so, a Labour majority after the next general election, what happens to Brexit then? I am taking this in three parts: what I think the Labour government does, what I believe the Tories do in opposition and finally, the external factors to either of those two things that could make a difference.

Brexit and a Labour government

The short answer here is, don’t expect a lot in a hurry. I figure Labour will look to try and undo the worst parts of the Johnson-Frost trade agreement and in the process, find as much alignment as possible with the EU without having to accept any of the four freedoms. There is a chunk of things they can do here to make life a little better in Britain, but nothing that will come remotely close to the advantages of rejoining the single market.

The real question is, will Labour get to the end of this parliament and then throw their hands up and say, look, we’ve done all we can and I’m afraid the only way we can go any further is by rejoining the single market? The main problem with this idea is that I am starting to wondering whether rejoining the single market without full EU membership is even possible now. We’d have to join EFTA and it’s worth wondering whether they would want Britain inside of their club. The problem with the UK and EFTA being that we are too large and might well upset the balance of power between Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland who rather like things the way they are at the moment. Also, the EU might not want to set a precedent now for a large country leaving the EU and then joining EFTA. I think they would have considered it in 2017, but after all the battles that have come and gone since, I have to wonder whether they might just wait until Britain is ready to rejoin the EU full stop.

Anyhow, what Labour does in the run in to the general election after next depends a lot on external factors, one of which is, of course, what the Tories do in opposition.

Brexit and the Tories out of power

I firmly believe the nervous breakdown that the Conservative party is having at present will extend into at least the first portion of their time in opposition. Choice of leader after the election will be key, and I can imagine them doing something very stupid here (although they may be limited by who manages to hold onto their seats).

This means they may well try and go even more UKIPPY once out of office. However, this is unlikely to yield them the sort of polling numbers they need to even appear like they might bounce back after only one election. The party could split, particularly if Reform are riding relatively high again. They could realise that trying to be a sensible party of government as opposed to a bad Farage tribute act might be a better way to try and recapture Downing Street.

They might even begin to understand that they face an existential fork in the road: keep trying to be UKIP and fade into oblivion, or attempt to appeal to all the people they lost in their once heartlands. Part of this might be rolling back on the pro-Brexit feeling in the party to the point where they are at least pro-single market again. If this sounds ridiculous now, imagine what happens once Brexit becomes Labour’s problem and rejoin is 70% in the polls.

Again, this is subject to a host of external issues which I’ll now cover.

What do pro-Europeans do in the face of a Labour victory?

This, weirdly, might be the most important thing of all in what determines the future of Brexit post-2024. Pro-Europeans need to hit the ground running and apply maximum pressure on Labour to tilt towards rejoin from the day after they get a majority. It will be an uphill battle but Rejoiners need to avoid being fobbed off by Labour on this subject.

What would be ideal would be a sort of pro-EU, reverse UKIP - a party whose main goal is not to win power or even seats necessarily but who will scare Labour into offering concessions on the European question. This could in theory be the Lib Dems, but that is riddled with problems, not least of which is that the way the Liberal Democrats are organised as a party is frankly a complete nightmare and besides, it’s difficult to see them ever just chucking in the towel on the notion of government and becoming a one issue party (which this would have to be). No, it probably needs something brand new.

A new pro-European party would have advantages that UKIP never had - as well as downsides Farage never had to face. The advantages are that questions around Brexit have a huge salience that the European question, pre-2016, never had. The public polls will be heavily in favour of the concept of rejoining in the abstract; again, Eurosceptics never had this going for them before the referendum.

The obstacles in front of pro-Europeans post-2024 that the Eurosceptics never had to face pre-2016 are fairly daunting, however. For a start, there are no European elections to one, get pro-Europeans elected into office and thus into the mainstream media to constantly push their point and two, receive a lot of funding from Brussels to keep a new pro-European party going.

Another issue is that the Eurosceptics had in Farage a perfect vehicle to push their agenda. Who is the pro-European equivalent? I don’t immediately see it. Like Farage, they would have to be someone not associated with an existing political party, someone with a reasonable amount of political knowledge and skill but who had never been an elected official for another party and would be willing to chuck in any connection they have to either the Lib Dems, Labour or the Greens to front a new political party. The last point is key - this person would have to have no problem with annoying any of the existing parties.

Anyhow, if this sort of person could be discovered, it might get interesting. Anti-Brexit feeling is only going to grow from here and how Labour and the Tories respond to that will have a lot to do with whether or not there is an external force that can pressure them into pivoting on Europe, as both will be reluctant to do so unless they are forced to. Either way, if you’re pro-European, get ready for 2025 - everyone will have to be prepared to move things up a gear or three.

Thanks for reading. If you aren’t a subscriber yet, please subscribe. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber, even better. This is all the extra stuff you get with a paid subscription:

1. A country by country report on how each of the remaining EU27 see post-Brexit Britain now, released piece by piece over the course of the next 18 months. I will interview key people in each EU country and try and present the most balanced view I can from each.

2. Sections from a book I partly wrote - and will complete for my paid subscribers over this year - entitled, How Brexit Gets Reversed. It is about what happened pre-referendum, during the referendum and then after it but pre-Brexit itself, with some inside stories about Farage, Vote Leave, and the Remain campaign, as well as what I think will happen in the coming decade(s) that leads to Brexit being slowly reversed - and most importantly, what pro-Europeans can do to help the process along.

3. I will provide a running technical explanation about elements of the Retained EU Law Bill, how EU law translated into UK law works and how it may affect you personally.

Thanks everyone and I’ll see you all again next week for the worst of Brexit.