Labour of love...
What can Labour do about Brexit? The short answer is nothing.
The whole process has been a car crash in slow motion and hardly anyone wants to go through it again. This is sensible, it has eaten up every inch of Government bandwidth and more for years, it is a mess but there is no wish to go over it again.
Not least because the ultras will never admit they are wrong and would just start campaigning to leave as soon as the UK rejoined.
Who’d have the UK on those terms anyway?
So remainers should stop complaining that Labour doesn’t want to rejoin, after all the first rule of politics is learn how to count and there would be too few votes in repealing Brexit to be worth bothering about.
No, Labour has to make Brexit work and by so doing show over time the advantages of European cooperation.
So make sure to sign up for all the EU schemes on offer, research, space, student exchanges and a dozen more.
Promise to remove the billions of pounds worth of Customs red tape that the Conservatives have loaded on British business.
Negotiate in good faith over Northern Ireland and all other issues and accept compromises that work smoothly if not perfectly.
Accept EU standards for chemicals and everything else, reinventing the CE mark is a total waste of time and a huge unnecessary expense for British industry.
Get business people the right to travel and work temporarily in the EU at any time.
Negotiate equivalence for services including accounting, insurance and the City.
Accept EU agricultural standards, which alone would burn tons of red tape in one giant bonfire.
And do it all quietly, efficiently and without a fuss or wittering on about sovereignty.
All of a sudden trade with the EU will be cheaper smoother and easier, business will be happier and the loons who want autarky will be out in the cold.
This is the obvious way to ameliorate the worst damage that Brexit has imposed on the UK, make friends, get industry on side and put Brexit to bed.
Over time it will also make further cooperation with the EU the sensible and obvious option.
Which is the best that you are going to get.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
It would help if the UK public and, in particular, the political class weren't so ignorant about so much of the EU. We've sat here since before 2016, in a distant part of the EU, listening to every word and argument from Britain. Little of it has born any reation to real life on the ground here in the actual EU.
It would be something if the Labour Party at least acknowledged the colossal damage Brexit has done to British citizens' lives and livelihoods here in the EU. But they, like the rest of the UK's political class, behave as if we don't exist.
very true the ignorance and lack of care or empathy go hand in hand