Labour claim they would negotiate a better Brexit deal than the Tories. Here’s why that could be a problem If Labour tries to negotiate being partially in the single market, they will be repeating the central mistake made by the Government

Almost all discussion of Labour’s Brexit policy this week has focussed on whether they would support another referendum, and, if so, with what question. Very little has been said about Labour’s preferred scenario in which, if the Government fails to achieve a deal which Parliament approves, there is an election.

If Labour wins then, we’re told, they would seek to renegotiate a different and better deal with the EU. But what sort of deal would they seek? Labour has, reasonably enough, pointed to the many unforced errors made by the Government in its negotiations. However, even with the most competent negotiating team in the world, the basic choices and trade-offs of Brexit will not disappear.

Labour’s six tests for a Brexit deal do not seem to recognise that. In particular, the second test is that the deal should deliver the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the single market and the customs union. This wording derives from an ill-judged comment by David Davis, in his early days as Brexit Secretary, and its use by Labour is a sharp political ploy. But it ties them to a test that could only be met by remaining in the single market and a customs union.

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If they adopt that policy then it is not compatible with what Jeremy Corbyn has repeatedly said, and which was in the party’s 2017 election manifesto, namely that freedom of movement will end after Brexit. There is simply no way that the EU would, or could, ever agree to single market membership without freedom of movement. If Labour tries to negotiate being partially in the single market they will be repeating precisely the central mistake made by the Government.

‘Jeremy Corbyn and others have sometimes spoken in vague terms of the need to negotiate tariff-free access to the single market. This is meaningless and takes us back to the similarly vague ways Brexit was discussed during the referendum’

Corbyn and others have sometimes spoken in vague terms of the need to negotiate tariff-free access to the single market. This is meaningless and takes us back to the similarly vague ways Brexit was discussed during the referendum. All countries have ‘access’ to the single market. The question is on what terms and, crucially, whether through membership or a third country trade agreement. Moreover, tariffs are only one, and not the most important issue. What matters far more are non-tariff barriers to trade, such as regulation, and these are only soluble by membership.

The central problem posed for Brexit

If single market membership is ruled out by refusing freedom of movement, then Labour would also face the central problem posed for Brexit by the Irish border. Whilst they have already moved to a position of seeking to create a customs union with the EU this only addresses one part the border issue, and not even the major part. A fully frictionless and invisible border also entails the full and ongoing regulatory harmonisation that only single market membership provides.

Of course, it is perfectly possible that despite what Labour has said in the past they would end up seeking single market membership and a customs union, and drop opposition to freedom of movement. That could be done in conjunction with exercising the restrictions to free movement which actually already exist, albeit they were never used by British governments in the past. They could even argue, with justification, that free movement is, indeed, a benefit of single market membership.

‘Although this softest of Brexits would do the least economic damage it certainly wouldn’t be the “jobs first” Brexit they have spoken of. For that matter, jobs have already been lost before Brexit has even occurred’

If this does become the direction of travel, it might be regarded as the kind of consensual, pragmatic response to the 2016 vote that many expected Theresa May to adopt. On the other hand, many from both sides of the debate would immediately ask: in that case, why leave the EU at all? For leavers it would be Brexit In Name Only (BINO); for remainers, a pale shadow of what they want.

Jobs have already been lost

Perhaps most importantly of all for Labour, although this softest of Brexits would do the least economic damage it certainly wouldn’t be the “jobs first” Brexit they have spoken of. For that matter, jobs have already been lost before Brexit has even occurred.

At all events, if it transpires, as Labour clearly hope, that Brexit brings down the Government before next March then they will have to go into an election with a clear, agreed and feasible plan for how they would approach the negotiations. It is one thing, as an opposition party, to castigate the Government’s failures in this respect but quite another, as an aspiring government, to repeat them.