Is Labour trying to undermine the referendum result? Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Tories have told us NOTHING about what ‘Brexit’ will look like – apart from the fact that it will be ‘red, white and blue’.  By contrast, Labour’s Brexit shadow secretary Keir Starmer has been presenting a very clear and positive idea of how we should respond to the referendum.

BREMOANERS AND BREXSH*TERS

Labour are not ‘Bremoaners’ trying to subvert the result of the referendum – Starmer has made it clear that he regards the 23 June vote as a binding ‘mandate’, and that Labour will not prevent the government triggering Article 50 in March.  But neither are they ‘Brexsh*ters’ trying to pretend that we can simply walk away without any plans and all will magically be well.  In Starmer’s terms: there is a ‘mandate’ on our leaving … but there is no mandate on the terms of our leaving, which MUST be debated and agreed. I get angry at those people who use every setback to claim that Brexit is failing.  Equally, I disagree with those who take every bit of economic success to suggest that Brexit is working.  Brexit hasn’t happened yet!  So all these ‘analyses’ are pure guesswork, and we will only know if Brexit was a good or bad idea in half-a-century’s time. And whatever happens, there will “always be an England”, with an economy and trade and a place in the world.  We have such already within the EU, of course, but Brexit will take all our political and economic circumstances and utterly reshape them.  So our future success depends, not just on leaving the EU, nor even on the deal the government negotiates, but on how well we adapt to our new circumstances.

BREXIT AS AN OPPORTUNITY

There is a saying: “there are no problems, only opportunities”.  Brexit can be seen similarly.  Of course there are dangers – but successful businesses will avoid the pitfalls, and the government needs to aspire to create a climate for success whatever shape ‘Brexit’ it negotiates. I’ll give you a concrete example.   Here in the North-East we face a skills shortage, especially as many of our skilled workers prepare to retire.  If we had stayed in the EU, firms would have been able to recruit skilled workers from other EU countries.  So, if Brexit were to stop the Free Movement of Labour, yes it MIGHT cause a shortage of skilled workers in the North-East (danger) … OR it could instead release wellpaid jobs for North-East workers (opportunity).  I was last year on a County Council Review of Workforce Skills which discovered wonderful examples (particularly at Hitachi and Caterpillar) of skills training.  In Newton Aycliffe, our County Council GAMP committee has set up a fund to help people-in-work upskill themselves to progress their careers.  So, given the time and the money, I have no fear that we in the North-East could produce the skilled workers to fill any skills gap left by Brexit. But this kind of preparation needs the government to have a clear, costed plan of how it intends things to develop in the future … and that is not happening.

WE NEED TO LISTEN TO LABOUR

Labour has always fought for the North-East.  And now only Labour sees clearly how to head into the future in a way which accepts the mandate of the referendum, yet empowers the people of the North-East to seize Brexit’s opportunities.  And that is why Labour is demanding that this incompetent government should develop a plan and give us at local level the resources to achieve that plan.  That is not “working against” Brexit – it is trying make sure that Brexit works for us.

John D. Clare