Right now we have a very surreal political situation.
The hard right of the Conservative Party (the ERG) wants to leave the largest free market area in the world and impose protectionist tariffs (in the hopelessly misguided and nostalgic belief that we can build a new British Empire from the ashes).
The hard left of the Labour Party (Corbyn loyalists) are also happy with a protectionist Brexit because it means escaping neoliberalism and safeguarding the interests of the traditional British working class (who have long been replaced by a precariat subject to economic forces that are intrinsically global).
Brexit cannot deliver both a neoliberal economic utopia (which is what the ERG is aiming for) and a socialist utopia (what the Corbyn Brexiteers are aiming for). They are polar opposites and both parties are stuck in the past. British politics is like a fat person who’s been watching telly for the last two decades suddenly getting up and trying to do the splits.
Enter the Independent Group of 11 MPs who’ve left Labour and the Tories. They hope to avert Brexit and avoid both no deal (which would lead to economic chaos) and Theresa’s May’s deal (which doesn’t even address the economics, hence needing a backstop in case the following years of negotiation fail).
All this mind-bending complexity and paradox is quite the opposite of the simple choice offered in the referendum, and it’s no wonder that people are frustrated. The first thing the Independent Group needs to do is point this out in a non-patronising way.
This is clearly easier said than done. But the Leave campaign has now been found to have clearly breached campaigning financing rules, particularly around their use of shady Facebook advertising that manipulated people who had previously (very understandably) shown little interest in politics.
The next thing that they need to do is have the balls to admit that the neoliberal economics of the EU need to change. The British people aren’t stupid. They’ve seen how countries like Greece have been bullied when things start going tits up. And they understand that the global economic system (where the EU and the UK have basically just followed the American model for decades now) is broken, and has been for over a decade now.
Without a credible acknowledgement that there is a lot wrong with UK public services, that austerity doesn’t work, and that we can’t just keep polishing the turd produced by George Osborne after the financial crisis, the new group will fall flat on its face.
A remain and reform platform is still within the grasp of British politics, and by treating the British public with respect it should still be possible to bring the majority along with a new plan. But we need substance and detail quickly, and in a way that speaks beyond the Westminster bubble.
