Rebecca Long-Bailey Corbyn loyalist

The unavoidable extension to article 50 was forced by the total failure of Theresa May’s strategy. It’s all very well kicking the can down the road, until you realise you’re in a cul-de-sac.

But the short extension does open up a window for parliament to signal a way out of the crisis the government has created. There is now a view – widely shared across parties – that the prime minister cannot be allowed to plough on with her doomed strategy. We will not let her take the country over the cliff edge for the sake of internal Tory party management.

So this week Labour will use every lever we have to finally allow parliament to consider the other options – including our alternative plan, the common market 2.0 proposal, a customs union and a public vote.

In her catastrophically judged speech last Wednesday night, Theresa May had the gall to accuse MPs of doing “everything possible to avoid making a choice”. The truth – as she well knows – is that she has done everything possible to prevent MPs making a choice. That must change this week.

However people voted in the referendum, they want this sorted. Everyone is fed up with the vital issues that affect their daily lives – collapsing public services, violent crime, the housing crisis, councils on the edge of bankruptcy, climate change – being ignored as the government falls apart over Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyn has been holding positive meetings with party leaders and cross-party groups of MPs. Last Thursday in Brussels he met Michel Barnier and the leaders of left-of-centre European governments, including the prime ministers of Spain and Portugal, to try to find a way forward.

Labour’s starting point is our alternative plan based around a new customs union and a close alignment to the single market. It abides by the result of the referendum without wrecking our economy. And it will work for the whole country, not just those at the top.

Unlike the prime minister, Labour is willing to be flexible to find a way through. But we will not vote for Theresa May’s terrible deal, and we will never countenance a disastrous no-deal crash. The powerful will use the economic shock of no deal to impose more austerity on the many and corporate tax cuts for the few. Labour has committed to supporting all options remaining on the table, including a public vote, to ensure that this disaster is prevented.

Our country is dangerously divided. Parliament must now take back control and chart a way out of this mess that brings the country together.

Rebecca Long-Bailey is Labour’s shadow business secretary

Lucy Powell Soft Brexiter



The road has very nearly run out for the prime minister’s Brexit deal. She complains that MPs haven’t said what we are for, only what we are against. The only roadblock in the way of parliament finally expressing what it wants is the PM and her increasingly Trumpian tactics.

MPs want to resolve the crisis. We’ve recognised for a long time that compromise is needed to break the deadlock.

I’ve been working cross-party to set out our common market 2.0 proposals which ensure we leave the EU and all its political institutions, such as the common agricultural policy, common fisheries policy and the jurisdiction of the European court of justice. We would assert our current rights as members of the European Economic Area via Efta to stay in the single market so that we keep frictionless trade and come to a customs arrangement. It can also happen quickly – we could be in Efta by the summer.

We believe this is a plan that can unite parliament and the country. Leavers and Remainers get something from common market 2.0, Labour and Conservatives, too.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lucy Powell says MPs must come together in the national interest. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

A second referendum and common market 2.0 aren’t mutually exclusive. They are not opposing viewpoints but separate questions. Any future referendum first requires clarity in parliament on what leaving looks like, because it is clear that the PM’s deal has no legitimacy. It’s possible to vote for a better deal and then say this should be put to the people for a final say.

There is concern that common market 2.0 would not end free movement of labour. In fact, we’d have an emergency brake on it, which is not something we have in the EU. Norway, Iceland and other EEA countries can suspend it if there is a large movement of people across the continent, or extreme economic or societal circumstances. Our government determines what that is. David Cameron spent months in the lead-up to the referendum trying to get just that from Europe as an exception for the UK.

We are where we are because of the failure of the PM to work in the national interest. By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn has been engaging with our group and others on a way forward .

It’s good that the government seems to be conceding the principle of indicative votes, but common market 2.0 isn’t any of the proposals being mentioned. Let’s bring forward the carefully thought-through options, not some random government selection set up to fail. Once parliament rejects May’s deal this week, MPs must be allowed to come together in the national interest.

Lucy Powell is the Labour MP for Manchester Central

Chris Leslie People’s vote

This week, Brexit will test the prime minister, the opposition and every MP in Parliament. It could be the final opportunity to renew a sense of confidence in politics and show that the country comes before party politicking.

With Theresa May facing a third defeat on her deal, backbenchers will hopefully take control of the Commons order paper this week. Advocates of Norway, Canada and a customs union will have a chance to test the appetite of MPs for their ideas.

But “indicative votes” aren’t magic votes. They can’t conjure a cost-free exit from the EU, or the oxymoron of “a jobs-first Brexit”. Instead it will be a process that lays bare the weaknesses of each Brexit option. Either a painful exit that punishes trade and livelihoods. Or a pointless Brexit where we have to abide by EU rules, but have no say in making them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Leslie wants backbenchers to take control. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters

MPs may end up determining a “least-worst” option. But that wouldn’t be good enough. Instead it must be the point at which parliament’s choice is put to the British people for their final consent on whether to leave or stay in the EU.

My fear is that the short-term partisan considerations of the Labour and Conservative leaderships will conspire in overruling what ought to be in the national interest. Instead of putting it to the people – as so many marched to demand yesterday – two stubborn party leaders will prioritise their ideological hardliners. Theresa May cannot abandon the ERG. Jeremy Corbyn wants to abandon the EU.

A People’s Vote needs some Conservative MPs to support it. But as important is Labour whipping its MPs to fulfil their conference promise. The Labour leadership have played people for fools, inventing new “steps” before an ever-distant horizon.

They said once the PM’s deal was defeated (done) and Labour’s proposal fell (done) and an election wasn’t obtainable (done) they would back a “public vote”. But they’ve lawyered their way out of that time after time.

That image of Labour MPs, abstaining in the Commons vote on a final say, spoke volumes. I couldn’t be complicit in Labour’s charade, which is why I joined the Independent Group. There are still good Labour MPs trying to persuade their leadership to do the right thing. I hope they succeed. If they don’t, it will be Labour as well as the Conservatives who have to defend their decision to facilitate Brexit.

Chris Leslie is the Independent Group MP for Nottingham East

Nicky Morgan Reluctant supporter

Conservative politics are about pragmatism, realism and stability. The government’s Brexit strategy fails to demonstrate all three. When Downing Street has been told repeatedly in the past two years that its strategy needs to be more flexible, it hasn’t listened.

Red lines were set far too early: options closed off as we were told “no deal is better than a bad deal” and certain options “aren’t Brexit”; a backstop created more political problems than it solved; cross-party talks which were started half-heartedly after the first meaningful vote. All were symptomatic of national leadership which decided, once the course had been set, that there could be no deviation and their will would prevail.

The biggest failure to confront reality was that once parliament had secured a meaningful vote in December 2017, the prime minister clearly failed to grasp what that really meant – she would have to find a deal which would command a majority in the Commons.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicky Morgan says the future relationship can be decided later. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

I remember a senior Downing Street member of staff saying to me in late 2017: “We don’t like the meaningful vote, but we accept it.” Clearly, they never did.

It is still true, as the prime minister said in her Friday night letter to MPs, that the best way to fulfil the referendum result is to leave in an orderly way with a deal. That is why I will, for the third time, vote in favour of the withdrawal agreement if it appears before MPs again.

I would still encourage members on all sides to support the agreement – but particularly my Conservative colleagues and the DUP. This is the arrangement which definitely means the UK leaves in 2019.

The alternative arrangements to the backstop, which a group of us spent many hours discussing with the government, are reflected in the documents. The future relationship they want can be negotiated.

But if the agreement falls, or isn’t even voted on, then parliament must have indicative votes, conducted on a free vote basis, and we must put aside our personal preferences and vote for what will give the UK the most stability and a future we can plan. I believe that lies somewhere around the EEA/Efta relationship. It always has.

The tragedy for Theresa May is that if she had alighted on this in the autumn of 2016 she would have stood a much better chance of uniting most of parliament and most of the country – and leaving the EU on 29 March with a deal in place.

Nicky Morgan is Conservative MP for Loughborough. She was secretary of state for education in 2014 to 2016

Peter Bone No dealer

My view is that we should come out in five days’ time, on 29 March, on a managed no-deal basis. I just held had my local Conservative association AGM and not a single person dissented from that view. Everybody is coming up to me and saying that is the only way we are going to deliver Brexit.

Any other way will probably stop Brexit happening. It seems to me that all that needs to happen in the next few days is for nothing to happen. To delay Brexit in the way the EU announced last week requires a vote in parliament on a so-called statutory instrument (SI).

But if an SI is not laid in parliament for a delay, we will be coming out on 29 March. When we voted on whether to delay Brexit 10 days ago, two-thirds of Tory MPs and seven cabinet members voted against the idea. It is very clear that Conservative MPs and members do not want this date extended.

Some people ask why we can’t look at alternatives. But they forget that it was not only Theresa May who said hers is the only deal on offer. The EU said so, too. So all these supposed alternatives, like a Norway model and a permanent customs union, are not on offer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Peter Bone says the view of the people is not being honoured. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

What we should do is take up the EU’s own suggestion, made last December, for a nine-month standstill after we leave, under which we come out but carry on trading on the same basis and stay tariff free. After that, yes, we would go on to World Trade Organisation rules but this period would have smoothed things over. Everyone would relax. Businesses would be ready.

You could turn up at the borders for nine months and everything would be the same during that period. This does not mean changing any agreements. A lot of side agreements have already been made, on medicines, on aeroplanes being able to fly, on lorries crossing borders. Life can go on. Then when that period is over businesses will have had time to adjust.

Everybody is coming up to me and saying: “Please, Peter, we have to leave on 29 March. We have to get this done.” This is what is happening outside the Westminster bubble.

We delegated the decision to the British people and the view of the people is not being honoured. We must honour the result of the referendum.

Peter Bone is the Conservative MP for Wellingborough

Caroline Flint Labour leaver

Parliament faces straightforward choices: the withdrawal agreement deal, no deal, or a long extension which would mean taking part in EU elections while campaigners carry on agitating to stop Brexit.

For some, the third choice is the preferred outcome. An absolute majority of MPs are opposed to a second referendum or to revoking article 50. But Labour’s priority in the 2017 general election and in the 2018 party conference motion was to secure a deal.

The withdrawal agreement deal agreed by the EU 27 honours the referendum result and protects EU citizens’ rights, and now we have secured guarantees on workers’ rights to be enshrined in the withdrawal agreement bill before we leave.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Caroline Flint says the current deal stops Britain falling off a cliff. Photograph: Chris McAndrew

This deal stops a cliff edge, keeping us in the customs union and single market for two years, with no change – giving businesses certainty and protecting jobs. There is nothing in this improved deal which Labour MPs could not support.

For those who respect the referendum, but support a customs union, or a Norway option, all of those are still in play – but the EU is determined that trade negotiations can only start after we have left. The EU has confirmed it will not reopen the legally binding withdrawal agreement. But the political declaration will evolve as soon as we get into the trading and security discussions after we have left. So the idea of indicative votes is, at best, a displacement activity.

Parliament will have the opportunity to have all those debates and votes after we leave. Any MP who genuinely believes we should honour the referendum result and avoid a no-deal exit, but wants a particular type of trading relationship, can vote for this deal.

Ironically, hardline Leavers and Remainers have railed against this deal for the very reason that it is not a hard Brexit. We should not brand it as such. At the final hour, for Labour MPs to oppose a deal simply because we have a Tory government could lead to the UK plunging out with no deal – a disorderly Brexit that would herald a flight of investment. New factories on hold, jobs lost. Parliament faces a choice. We can’t walk away. There is only one path to leaving the EU in good order. This deal. And every Labour MP will face voters who ask: “Did you vote to back Brexit or did you vote to stop it?”

Caroline Flint is the Labour MP for Don Valley