Labour could either back Leave or Remain in the future depending on what happens in the coming months, according to an outline version of the party’s new position on Brexit.
Labour would back Remain if the next Tory prime minister opts for a second referendum but, if there is a snap election, the party would seek to negotiate its own Brexit deal.
The revised position will frustrate those campaigners, members and MPs who have been pushing for Jeremy Corbyn to adopt a wholeheartedly Remain position in all circumstances. “There are only so many varieties of fudge the people will swallow,” said one Labour MP.
But it will come as a relief to several dozen Labour MPs in northern England and the Midlands who believe that a clear-cut Remain position could cost them their seats.
Mr Corbyn is likely to claim that the new stance respects the result of the 2016 EU referendum while also shifting the party into a more Europhile stance.
Trade union leaders, who wield huge clout within Britain’s main opposition party, met on Monday and agreed a written statement which is expected to be discussed at the shadow cabinet on Tuesday.
The document said that Labour’s Brexit position would depend on which happened first: a general election or a second referendum.
If in this parliament the next Tory prime minister tries to strike a new Brexit deal with Brussels or tried to take the UK out of the EU without a deal then Labour’s position would be to campaign to Remain.
But if the general election happens first then Labour’s manifesto would broadly accept a Leave position, according to the draft drawn up by TULO — the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation.
In those circumstances, the party would want to pursue a more acceptable form of Brexit, according to the document. “Negotiating with the European Union to respect the Brexit vote from 2016, reflecting the negotiating priorities that Labour has outlined,” it said. “Any final Labour deal should then be put back to the people.”
Critically, Labour could either campaign for its own deal or against it, according to the document which says this would “depend on the deal negotiated”.
One union figure argued that the implication was that Labour would become a Remain party, given that Brussels would probably offer the same deal as the House of Commons rejected three times in the spring.
“I can’t imagine Brussels countenancing anything different to what May got, they’ll say ‘take this deal or jog on’,” the person said. “Then you’d have half the shadow cabinet, most of the membership pushing for Remain with just Seumas Milne (head of strategy) and three other people wanting Leave.”
One Labour MP said the policy was designed to “spare the blushes” of Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite the Union, who has opposed a second referendum for months. “If we get to a general election and renegotiation it’s inconceivable that the mood in the Labour movement won’t be to call the whole disaster off,” he said.
But Neil Coyle, MP for Southwark and Bermondsey, criticised the way that the policy was still highly nuanced. Mr Coyle said members had wanted “full-throttle opposition” to the economic damage of Brexit.
“Members expected to be involved in policymaking on this crucial issue,” he said. “Members . . . are likely to be frustrated again at the latest position.”
A senior Labour figure said the written statement from TULO was not the final party position, but admitted: “For weeks, Jeremy Corbyn has been working to try to unite the whole Labour party and Labour movement around a single position on Brexit . . . you could say it’s taking shape now that the unions have come around an agreed position.”
Mark Francois, a leading Eurosceptic Tory MP, said Labour was in “utter chaos” over its European policy.
“Either track on the Labour’s party’s new policy would lead to a second referendum, thus spending over £130m of British taxpayer’s money to ask them to respond to a question they already answered three years ago,” he said. “A Boris Johnson premiership will hopefully put them out of their Marxist misery once and for all.”
Meanwhile, half a dozen Labour MPs announced on Monday that they would not stand at the next general election, as they reached the deadline for announcing their departures: Kate Hoey, Stephen Twigg, Jim Fitzpatrick, Sir Kevin Barron, Ronnie Campbell and Stephen Pound.
