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Keir Starmer faces a high-profile rebellion against Labor’s Brexit position on the eve of the vote in parliament, as prominent MPs, including John McDonnell and Clive Lewis, accused him of “falling into the trap of uniting around this rotten deal. “
Labor is likely to contain a major rebellion of front-line MPs, but a growing number of prominent supporters are urging Starmer to change course. Backbenchers have also raised concerns on private WhatsApp groups that Labor support for the deal has been granted without the legislation being released.
The Brexit conservatives who are studying the trade deal will deliver their verdict on Tuesday afternoon.
The European Research Group (ERG), the influential group of Eurosceptic backbenchers, will follow the lead of its so-called “star chamber,” which includes ERG Vice President David Jones, Sir Bill Cash and QC Martin Howe, and is analyzing the deal.
Senior members of the ERG are understood to be broadly supportive of the document, but have identified issues, including fishing rights, on which members plan to raise concerns.
Those who signed the Labor statement urging Starmer not to support the deal come from across the political spectrum, including former shadow Chancellor McDonnell and Ben Bradshaw, a former cabinet minister who is a strong supporter of Starmer.
“This deal is a substantial degradation of the UK’s relationship with the EU,” the statement warns, “and is designed to open the door to rampant economic deregulation, a loss of rights and protections for workers, the environment, food standards and many other areas of life. “
Also signed by two former Labor leaders in the European Parliament, Richard Corbett and Glyn Ford, as well as former MEPs Julie Ward, Mary Honeyball, David Martin and Jude Kirton-Darling, along with former Labor Minister Andrew Adonis.
The declaration, organized by Another Europe is Possible and Work for a Socialist Europe, has also been endorsed by two former MPs who lost their seats in the 2019 elections, Anna Turley and Sandy Martin.
Also signed were activists such as Laura Parker, former director of Momentum, filmmaker Paul Mason and Michael Chessum of Another Europe Is Possible, who coordinated the efforts of the left for the second referendum under Jeremy Corbyn.
The group that signed the statement, which also includes activists and local councilors, says the task of the opposition is proper parliamentary scrutiny and establishing an alternative. “That task becomes more difficult if the opposition parties fall into the trap of uniting around this rotten deal,” he says.
“We are witnessing an act of vandalism against our livelihoods, our rights and our horizons. We call on Labor, the Labor movement and other opposition parties not to support the Brexit deal by the Conservatives when it goes to a vote in the House of Commons. “
The UK parliament has been called to meet on Wednesday 30 December to debate and vote on the legislation, but MPs are expected to pass the post-Brexit trade and security deal by a substantial margin after Starmer confirmed that the Labor Party would support him. The Lib Dems and the SNP will vote against the deal.
Any Tory Brexiter rebellion is likely to be small, though most said there would be no “spanking” deals for members of the group. “It will be up to individual colleagues to decide how they will vote,” said one MP, in contrast to the tightly coordinated opposition of the Theresa May era.
The Democratic Unionist Party said it would vote against the Brexit deal “on a point of principle” and not because it did not support any deal, he said. Party leader Arlene Foster said she acknowledged that the impact of bureaucracy on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland has been reduced, but “we still have a lot of negative problems” stemming from the Northern Ireland protocol. Other Northern Ireland MPs from the SDLP and Alliance parties will also vote against the deal.
On Monday, EU member states unanimously backed the deal, paving the way for the new deals to come into effect on January 1. At a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels, the 27 member states gave their support for the 1,246-page treaty to be “provisionally applied” by the end of the year.
The European Parliament is delaying its vote until February or March, when MEPs are expected to return to Strasbourg to complete the formal EU ratification process.
Speaking on Monday morning, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove praised the deal, but said British companies faced a “bumpy” period starting on January 1.
“Businesses will need to make sure they are ready for the new customs procedures and we as individuals will have to make sure our passports are up to date because they must be at least six months old before they expire in order to travel abroad,” he said.
“I am sure there will be difficult times, but we are there to try to do everything we can to pave the way.”
There has been growing anger from British fishermen over the extent of the fishing rights of EU vessels in UK waters. Under the terms of the agreement, 25% of the fishing rights of EU vessels in UK waters will be transferred to the UK fishing fleet over a transition period of five and a half years.
Gove said UK fishermen would be “getting a significant increase … we’ll have around two-thirds of the fish in our waters by 2026.” However, Andrew Locker, president of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations, said they would be “absolutely worse off” as a result of the deal.
“What we have now is a fraction of what we were promised through Brexit. We are really, really going to struggle this year. “
Many MPs from all sides have told the Whips that they do not plan to be present on Wednesday due to London’s level 4 coronavirus restrictions. Commons spokesperson Lindsay Hoyle has strongly urged MPs to participate virtually and to use proxy votes.
