Why Is the Labour Right Desperate to Rehash Brexit?

For those of you a little out of puff after last week’s avalanche of Labour leadership maneuverings, remember: it’s a marathon not a sprint. Stay hydrated, folks, and find your pace, because we’ve exactly a month to go before 18 June. That’s the date now being reported (though still unconfirmed) on which the good people of Makerfield will select their new MP – and possibly the next prime minister. 

Forget the future, though: it’s history that’s been occupying Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham this weekend. Even though only Streeting has declared his intention to run, everyone and their dog knows they’re our current contenders for the Labour crown. 

That may explain why the recently ex-health secretary, very much the longshot in this race, decided to truly set le chat amongst i piccioni on Samstag. Yes, chicos, we’re Brexdebating like it’s 2016 all over again.  

“Leaving the European Union,” Wes Streeting told a meeting of the Labour right Progress group this weekend, “was a catastrophic mistake.” 

That’s quite the stall to set out when you’re pitching for the biggest job in politics. Guaranteed to turn the stomach of one chunk of the electorate, overstimulate the hope cores of another, and send the rest into a spiral of screaming pub lunch flashbacks, little could be more divisive. Were Streeting leading the Labour party to a general election tomorrow, ‘Catastrophic’ would be graffitied across his political tombstone the very next day. 

Of course, Streeting is not running for popular election anytime soon. But Andy Burnham probably is.

The Greater Manchester mayor has, from the comfort of his northern throne, mused similarly in the past. “Long term,” he said of the EU at Labour conference last September, “I’m going to be honest, I’m going to say it: I want to rejoin it.” 

That sentiment may go down like a cup of cold sick in Makerfield, a constituency that, according to professor of politics Chris Hanretty’s calculations, probably voted 65% for Leave at the referendum. And the area’s euroscepticism appears to have translated into Reform UK support, at least to some degree. Recent Britain Predicts modelling by for a general election shows Reform comfortably beating Labour to the seat 41% to 28%. 

Those figures, though, undergo a shift when you add the Burnham effect. Using pollster magic and exit-data from the recent Gorton and Denton byelection, the same model puts Labour on 39%, with Reform on 36%.

As Ben Walker put it in the New Statesman, with Burnham in the mix, the byelection “would cease to be a referendum on the Labour government and instead become a vote on a potential future government”.

Well, that may have been true before Streeting decided to associate the Labour party – and its likely candidate in the constituency by proxy – with a Brexit reversal. An association guaranteed to get both Burnham’s and Streeting’s words printed on thousands of Reform UK campaign leaflets in the coming weeks. Sure, the byelection may no longer be a referendum on the Labour government.  Instead, we’ll get a referendum on a referendum that happened a decade ago.

I’ve no idea what was going through Streeting’s mind when he said what he said. I will note that he was smart enough to smash a bit of plausible deniability on any claim that he’s gunning to rejoin the EU. “Britain’s future,” he continued on Saturday, “lies with Europe, and one day back in the European Union.”

Something tells me there’ll have been a fair bit of back-slapping amongst Streeting and his advisors after that speech. If I’m right, it shows how deep the rot at the heart of the Labour right truly goes. In order to sustain its hazy vision’s clamp on party power, a parliamentary seat is a small price to pay. Perhaps a general election is too. Even a Reform government. 

Because the fact is, if Streeting does become the next Labour leader, that’s what we may well get. Wesmania? Never gonna happen. 

In his Saturday speech, Streeting was scathing about Keir Starmer’s government. Stifling, unimaginative, unprepared and lacking in clarity were a few of his barbs. As though we’d forget he’s been a senior member of it since it came to power. It’s that sense of slipperiness, as well as perceived connections to Palantir and Petey, that keep him out of the public’s favour. 

There may be one more fact playing on Streeting’s mind. With Reform looking set to win the next general election, it’ll likely be one of the most galvanising votes in British history. The bet will be this: in 2029, no matter how unpopular the Labour leader may be, every voter who fears a Reform government – and there will be many, many millions  – will hold their nose and vote to stop one. It’s that fear factor, still two or three years out of an election, that the polls haven’t yet begun to capture. But it means there’s a lot to play for in this leadership race. 

If your gut churns with negative nostalgia, trust it! Yes, it’s Project Fear all over again. It didn’t serve the Remain wing in 2016, and it’s unlikely to serve Labour towards the end of this decade either. But politicians don’t seem to learn from history anymore; nor do they try to make it. Even when that’s what the country is begging them to do. 

If Burnham manages to win Makerfield now, history is what he’ll make. Beating Reform on its own ground will mean steering the battle away from that party’s favourite fantasy – the past – and onto issues currently central to people’s lives. If he passes that passage, it’ll ping a positive message to the entire nation: Reform is not unstoppable. At least not when Burnham takes them on. 

That’s a lot of ‘ifs’. And all of them serve Keir Starmer. Over the weekend, he was reported to be planning his departure timetable from Chequers. This morning, foreign secretary David Lammy has said the prime minister won’t step down. 

I’m not surprised. After the weekend’s Brexit revival, I’d be waiting to see where the Makerfield cards fall too.