Meanwhile, on another planet

Here is Matt Chorley who has been trying to understand from Jeremy Corbyn's utterances what Labour's policy on Brexit is:



Meanwhile Corbyn's shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, says that Labour will work with MPs on all sides of the chamber and use every parliamentary mechanism available to stop a "No-Deal" Brexit.

That will sound attractive to a lot of MPs and Remain voters and even some moderate Leave supporters.

There is however, a rather important catch.

When you look at what he is suggesting Labour will try do, Starmer  does NOT appear to be proposing any direct vote to rescind, or request a delay in the implementation of, Article 50 to avoid Britain crashing out without a deal if one has not been negotiated and agreed.

Here is a link to an article about what the Labour's shadow Brexit secretary is putting forward.

What Starmer is proposing to block is the legislation required to make a no-deal Brexit work.

If a  "no deal" Brexit required an affirmative vote to be implemented this might make sense, except that I don't think such a vote would have had much chance of being carried anyway.

But it doesn't. A "no deal" Brexit is the default position which happens in March 2019 unless parliament and the EU have agreed something else.

Given that parliament is hopelessly split, does Sir Keir Starmer really not see the risks to Britain in trying to block such legislation in the hope that by making a "No Deal" Brexit even more damaging he will force MPs to cancel Brexit?

Comments

Anonymous said…
No deal is better than this bad deal
11:41 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
No deal certainly would not be better than this or any other remotely reasonable deal if Starmer were to succeed in blocking the legislation required to make a "No Deal" Brexit work but we leave the EU without a deal anyway.

I have heard a whole raft of arguments for and against the deal, some of which appear to be based on facts and reasonable logic and some of which are less so.

Would you like to explain your particular reasons for not liking the deal?
12:47 am
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