Despite Labour voters support for a second referendum on EU membership, the party’s support for Brexit is probably the right policy writes Keiran Pedley. The Conservatives are vulnerable if Theresa May cannot negotiate a deal but not if Labour looks ‘pro-Brussels’.

As June the 8^th rapidly approaches, many have criticised the Labour Party’s approach to Brexit. With the Prime Minister solidly in favour of a so-called ‘hard Brexit’ and the Liberal Democrats the unapologetic party of Remain, Labour has seemed lost.  Many pro-European Labour supporters have expressed exasperation that the leadership will not pursue the Blairite ‘second referendum’ policy and Labour as a whole has been criticised for having no real answer on the biggest question of the day.

On this week’s Polling Matters podcast we looked at the numbers on this issue. As part of our Polling Matters / Opinium series we repeated the question on whether there should be a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU once the terms are known. After a slight shift in opinion in March, we can see that public opinion remains (pardon the pun), solidly against – yet Labour voters are solidly for.

Q. Once we know what terms the government has negotiated, should there be a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, where voters can choose between leaving under the terms negotiated or remaining in the EU after all?

	Among all			Remain voters			Leave voters
	Dec 16	Mar 17	May 17	Dec 16	Mar 17	May 17	Dec 16	Mar 17	May 17
Should be	33%	38%	36%	59%	66%	64%	9%	11%	9%
Should not be	52%	52%	53%	27%	23%	26%	81%	83%	85%
Don’t know	15%	10%	11%	14%	10%	11%	10%	6%	7%

 

	Labour voters
	Dec 16	Mar 17	May 17
Should be	54%	60%	57%
Should not be	32%	29%	31%
Don’t know	14%	11%	12%

If, as we all expect, the Conservatives are returned to power with an increased majority in June then whoever leads the Labour Party in the future will be faced with a real dilemma. There is likely to be a clamouring for a change in Labour policy on Brexit and we should expect someone to stand for the Labour leadership on the basis that a second referendum should be ‘on the table’. It may very well be the entire basis on which a candidate for the leadership challenges Jeremy Corbyn should he choose to try and hang on. Perhaps a change of policy is a good idea. If Brexit goes badly, then Labour can differentiate from the government by being the party offering a way out of a disastrous Brexit?

I’m not so sure. There is no real evidence from the past few months to suggest that a difficult Brexit will do anything other than increase support for the government and harden anti-EU sentiment. I am far from convinced that Labour will benefit from being positioned as the ‘pro Brussels’ party during exit negotiations. There is a prevailing mood in the public to ‘get on with it’ now and I see no real electoral dividend in fighting the tide. Indeed, the numbers above show that 1 in 4 Remainers (26%) do not want to revisit the question of EU membership along with 1 in 3 Labour voters (31%). Perhaps there was a time for the ‘2^nd referendum’ idea to take root but that time appears to have passed.

A far better policy for Labour now would be to support Brexit but to insist that walking away with no deal would be a disaster. To position Labour as the party that wants a positive relationship with the EU in a post Brexit world and to say clearly that a ‘no deal’ scenario would represent a failure of leadership on the part of the Prime Minister. This strategy puts the Conservative Party’s reputation for competent leadership and economic stability on the table rather than make Labour look like it is siding with the EU against Britain. Labour could say that any decision to re-join the EU would be subject to another referendum, that one would not take place during the first term of any future Labour government but that it could be on the table in the future.

If this sounds like I think the current policy is broadly right it’s because I think it is. In my view, Labour’s problem isn’t that its policy on Brexit is wrong, the problem is that this election is about ‘who negotiates that Brexit?’ and the public are quite clear that person should be Theresa May and not Jeremy Corbyn. Nevertheless, just because Britain is leaving the EU, that does not mean voters want bad relations with Europe, nor does it mean that issues around funding for schools, hospitals and social care have gone away. Labour can get back in the game. It just needs strong leadership and a sense of direction to do so.

Meanwhile in America

As American politics is dominated by the ongoing row over healthcare you may have missed the most recent episode of David Axelrod’s podcast ‘The Axe Files’. On this week’s episode, Axelrod interviews Ohio Governor John Kasich, who offers the worst ‘non-denial denial’ on the prospect of him running for President in 2020 that you are ever likely to hear. Could he run against Donald Trump in the Republic primary? Here is what he said:

On his support in the country:

“What I have found is that when I travel around on this book or when I travel around period people come to me and many of them are almost begging me to run again…”

When pressed on 2020 he goes on:

“My folks advise me because my inclination is to say ‘I’ll never run for anything again’ ok and they say ‘why do you say that John, you don’t know what the future is going to be’ and they’re right. So. I don’t know. Am I planning on for it? No. Do I have a political organisation still active? Yes. Why? Because I want to have a team of people that can help me to have an effective voice…It’s extremely difficult to maintain a voice if you don’t’ hold an office…’

Not exactly squashing it is he? More here.

John Kasich is 50/1 to be the GOP nominee in 2020 by the way. I am taking that.

Keiran Pedley is a regular contributor to Politicalbetting.com and editor of the PB/Polling Matters podcast. You can listen to this week’s episode below:

Keiran tweets about politics and public opinion at @keiranpedley