Labour fought the last election on a second referendum but that is never going to happen. Now they seem torn between voting for a deal, if there is one, voting against a deal or abstaining.
This is, to be fair, a difficult choice because:
A. Any deal is better than no deal so Labour should back it, except even the deal the UK is negotiating is a bad deal. So if Labour supports it and there are dire consequences, it will be pretty difficult to blame the Government when they voted for it too. Saying it would have been even worse without a deal, won’t cut much ice.
B. Vote against and you are siding with the Ulster Unionists, the SNP, and the ERG. Strange bedfellows, all with their own reasons for voting against but if they can together block the deal, the UK leaves without one. Which means if there are dire consequences, the Government will blame all of it on Labour and the SNP; but not so much on their own back benchers or the UU.
C. Vote against but the Government wins, you can claim moral high ground if there are dire consequences.
D. Abstain and the deal goes through, taking you back to A, because Labour didn’t stop it.
So for Labour the best result might be for the Government to fail to get a deal. Otherwise it has a 3 out of 4 chance of taking a large part of the blame.
https://jonty.substack.com/