What do Labour remainers want now?

I've almost forgotten this blog, which shows how things have moved on. The disputes about the protocol in NI continue to aggravate, of course, and Newsnight and the Graun do their best to blame Boris's Brexit deal (with some justice), avoiding the malicious EC/Eire campaigns to weaponise the issue. There are some signs that sense is prevailing behind the scenes.

A re-run of the issues appeared with the latest local election results (one by-election too), with a nearly complete story of Labour disaster. Debates about what happened inevitably took a characteristic form in the Remainer press -- how Starmer had failed to win over Labour Brexiteers (not that he had really tried). That was going to be difficult because it was clear the metropolitan Labourites still hated their guts as ignorant racists after Brexit. 

So what does metropolitan Labour want now all the last straws have been grasped -- the Deal has been ratified, so there is not even the forlorn hope of a Norway option. There just might be a hidden bond if the UK is forced to sign the EC common agreement on veterinary standards but is that even likely?

The blessed L Elliott, one-man beacon of sense in the Graun has put it well:

Until Labour remainers properly accept Brexit, the party will be stuck in limbo

Labour is now more fundamentally split over Europe than the Tories were under Thatcher and Major. The bulk of the party’s supporters voted remain and still feel strongly that the result of the referendum was bad for Britain. A significant minority, concentrated in towns such as Hartlepool, voted leave and have resented being told that they got it wrong.... Responsibility for this rift lies primarily with the hardline remainer element in the party...

Immediately after the referendum, the assumption was that leave voters would quickly regret what they had done and show buyer’s remorse. When that didn’t happen, Labour remainers threw their weight behind the campaign for a people’s vote, a second chance for those who had got it wrong first time to come up with the right answer. This culminated in Labour’s worst general election performance since 1935 – and a much harder Brexit than would otherwise have been the case...

...the remainer left [my only objection -- the metropolitan new petite bourgeoisie are ultra libs, not left] kept up the fight. Its conviction that life outside the EU would be disastrous was apparently confirmed when the government decided to organise its own vaccine procurement programme separate from Brussels. As talks on a new trade deal rumbled on into the autumn of 2020 there were confident predictions that the economy would collapse, supermarkets would run short of food and the M20 would become a lorry park.None of this has happened

When voters in industrial Britain made their unhappiness about being forgotten known in the Brexit referendum, they were patronised and vilified. The government, through infrastructure investment, the siting of vaccine plants in the north east and the relocation of part of the Treasury out of London is at least seen to be doing something

Remainers often give the impression that they welcome bad economic news on the grounds that it makes rejoining the EU more feasible. This is not a good political look.

Alternatively, remainers can allow Labour to re-coalesce around the following propositions: Brexit has settled the UK’s relationship with the EU for years if not decades to come; there are advantages as well as disadvantages to life outside the EU; there is a duty to improve the lives of those who voted to leave in June 2016.

I don't think they will be sensible though. It's too cultural a matter, too connected to social distancing and class politics.That will remain (sic), although it might take different forms, some of which we are seeing already -- sexual identity politics, struggles over heritage. We can only hope the new forms take over rapidly, but the old duty to improve the lives of the despised is more remote than ever. They voted for Brexit -- serves the nasty racists and misogynists right!