Brexit and the "Jersey option"

Submitted by SJW on 4 July, 2018 - 11:43 Author: Rhodri Evans

As the Tories stumble, grassroots opposition to Brexit is swelling. Some 100,000 marched in London on 23 June to demand no Tory Brexit formula go through without a referendum on it — many times more than marched the next Saturday for the NHS.

The “Left Against Brexit” tour organised by Another Europe is Possible starts on 4 July in Manchester. In many cities Workers’ Liberty people are helping to set up “Left Against Brexit” committees, for the tour meetings but also to continue and grow after that, with debates, street stalls, motions and speakers to labour movement bodies.

Crucial here is to dig down to the rank and file. A layer of the Labour left is resisting the push from below. Usually that layer don’t positively back Brexit, but they do argue that Labour should continue to go along with the leadership’s evasive policy of “accepting” Brexit, “accepting” free movement will end, and criticising the Tories while saying as little as possible about Labour’s own alternatives.

On 27-29 June the meeting of EU governments told the Tories that they “insist on the need for intensified efforts” and demand “further clarity as well as realistic and workable proposals from the UK”.

Prime Minister Theresa May has called a special cabinet meeting for 6 July, and is due to publish a Brexit “white paper” on 9 July.

There are sure to be fumbles along the way, with the possibility of the Tories lurching into a “hard Brexit”. Informed comment in the serious bourgeois press, however, suggests that strong and increasing big-business pressure may well push the Tories into a fairly “soft” Brexit.

Some on the left have made it their pitch that the Tories will produce a very “hard” Brexit. That may not be true. The argument against Brexit should be made on the positive and principled grounds of free movement, lower borders, social levelling-up, and a fight to democratise the EU, not just on the negative claim that the Tories will impose extreme Brexit.

According to the Financial Times and the Economist, the Tories are considering a “backstop arrangement”, the “Jersey option”, which leaves the UK in a customs union and in the Single Market for goods (not services) for a long period of time, while clamping down on workers entering Britain from the EU.

The FT says that Michael Gove, a key leader of the Tory pro-Brexiters, “has emerged as a key figure in a search for a cabinet compromise”, fobbing off the more obsessive Brexiters with “the possibility that the exit terms might be ‘improved’ once Britain has left the EU”.

The Labour leaders’ current trajectory suggests a stance of voting against the final Tory formula in October (or whenever), followed by a shrug which says what’s done is done and Labour will now accept it and move on.

In light of the “Jersey option” talk, that would be irresponsible. Even if the Tories get a deal through Parliament, there will remain much to campaign about .

A reversal of the curbs the Tories put on free movement. Making permanent and extending customs-union and Single-Market ties. And then a reversal of Brexit.

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