Splitting the Labour Party?

Labour's leader, Corbyn, has made a bold move regarding Britain's Brexit. He has used his 'meeting' with Prime Minister May to spell out a Labour proposal for Brexit, which includes Britain staying in a Customs Union and a single market with the EU. The benefits for the Labour leadership as a result of Corbyn's move are clear; first, he has set up a definitive alternative to May's deal. (May hopes she can fix her own rejected deal by getting some soothing words from the EU about the backstop and utilising the gathering fear of Tory MPs facing a possible 'no deal' Brexit.) Now there is a serious alternative to May's deal, even if she gets her modified backstop from Brussels. This could theoretically regroup some of the Tory pro-EU MPs who are currently hanging on to the proposed May deal 'for fear of something worse.' Corbyn's plan should, logically, bring together a real majority in Parliament - against both versions of the May deal. Except the Tories are unlikely to support Corbyn over anything.

Corbyn's proposal also carries through the unanimous Labour Party Conference vote on Brexit; to fight for a General Election first; to follow up with an alternative deal and then, should these options fall, to reopen the possibility of another referendum. (The effect on some rightwing Labour MPs has been to stir up yet another 'new party' project, and this time it is because Corbyn is carrying out Labour Party Conference policy. More on this later.)

Equally, should the Corbyn deal win in Parliament, it will also be supported, at least initially, by the EU, despite their fear and hatred of a potential Labour Government in Britain.

Should the Corbyn deal be accepted by Parliament, it would be taken as a genuine compromise between most leavers and remainers in the country. Even the proposal alone will give Corbyn's deal considerable weight among voters. It would also open the door again to free movement of European workers, and it could become a solid platform for the coming General Election, showing that there were bigger issues than Brexit. Labour would be seen as at least trying to 'pull people together' over Brexit. And finally, a Labour government following Brexit would not need necessarily to face EU dictats on nationalisations, government-investment banks etc.

Corbyn's proposal is therefore an acute danger for Prime Minister May (despite the likelihood that few Tories will ever actually vote for Corbyn - whatever their view of Brexit.) Initially she will deride Labour's Brexit plans as 'non-Brexit.' But her real fear is not that. May seeks her own deal to succeed because she wants to keep the Tory Party in Parliament together. She wants it to be 'her' deal which then keeps her leadership intact. May's one, over-riding, political contribution to Britain's people and the only real principle that she has ever fought for is that of slashing immigration and she believes can win the Tories (and herself) an early General Election victory over Labour by putting it front and centre.

Returning to some Labour MPs' responses to Corbyn's initiative; another 'New Party' flag is yet again being waved across all parts of the media. Tinged by the relentless media 'discoveries' of yet more anti-semitism in the Labour Party, a group of Labour MPs see Corbyn's latest Brexit deal as (another) final straw. The leading right wing British newspaper, the Daily Mail stated that 6 Labour MPs were considering breaking from Labour (this time.) They were joining up with pro EU Tory MPs in a 'centrist' arrangement. It is not clear if they are going to set up (a fourth) pro EU Party.

The trouble for Labour's future is the the splitters are not going to split. Not now. Not yet. Like lemmings they have scuttled to the precipice, expecting to lead a wave of followers, only to discover that it is the same old 6 (and the last time they turned back - it was at least 20!) It is frustrating. A solid core of Labour MPs have hated the Labour Party since Corbyn became its leader (twice.) They hated the (quite gentle) Labour Manifesto of 2017 and more; they were in despair about Labour's huge vote in the General Election, which they hoped would demonstrate the need to get Corbyn out.

The signal that these lost Labour souls used to follow was the Blairite assumption that the radical madness rediscovered among old lefties in the Labour Party, but now in the leadership, was a blip, a moment of madness and that the normal regime would soon be resumed. Now Labour MPs, like Chuka Umunna, do not any longer believe that the Labour Party is recoverable in its traditional sense. They have therefore moved on. They recognise that the Corbyn leadership has built a huge base in society and are therefore working on the creation of their own new base, directly related to the millions of supporters in favour of membership of the EU. That is why, unlike Corbyn and the other members of Labour's leadership, they do insist that Brexit is the predominant and ultimate question for Britain. They are not interested in any radical transformation of the UK's politics and economics. They never were. They were interested in national posts in traditional Labour governments and now in a new, potential base of ardent EU remainers ready for the next run at the precipice. They pose Brexit as the critical question - for that reason.

The contradictions for the Umunna's of this world is that a large majority of those who voted to remain in the EU were younger and in general they correctly do not see the EU question as the only issue. Even those who want to promote reform of the EU are diminished in their aspiration by the actual experience of the would-be reformers - already campaigning - but successively retreating, in EU member country after EU member country.  The various desperate but deliberate attempts to split younger voters off from the radical leadership of the Labour Party are not so inviting to them when the alternative to Corbyn's Labour Party is a re-run of Blairism and the de facto acceptance of austerity.

In that precise sense, the denial of the number one priority of breaking austerity, of reorganising the economy and of making inroads against widening inequality, the Labour MPs who are trying to use the idea that the EU is the essential, the only goal, are actually defending the traditional status quo against Labour's radical alternative. They have placed themselves as the servants of the City of London, big business and the destruction of any radical alternative to the reign of big Capital across a continent.

The divisions in the working class over Brexit, the Scottish vote to remain, the votes to remain in the big cities and among the larger ethnic groups as well as the under 40s, reflected in part a resistance to racism in 2016 and hostility to the rising right. Today the radical program and leadership of the LP has changed the central question for Scotland, for Wales, for England and for Ireland. The working class of Britain needs desperately to re-unite. Anti austerity alliances are the key. Corbyn's EU plan helps to open that door. Unity of the working class is desperately needed to build the radical resistance to the current and increasingly brutal British and EU capitalist system.

However an entirely different division needs to be accelerated to win that unity. Pushing through the currently divisions in the Labour Party are the key to winning Labour's leadership of radical reform. Unlike the Tory faction fights, Labour's split is profound and unavoidable in the development of future politics. And the sooner it is done the greater will be the clarification of what is essential in Britain, what must change and what must fall away.