Brexit may sink the Labour Party… but it could save Jeremy Corbyn’s job
BY-ELECTIONS are meant to be when the Opposition puts the Government on notice.
So the two by-elections in Labour-held seats on Thursday SHOULD just be a matter of weighing the votes.
But Labour are in such dire straits they are waiting nervously to see if they can hang on to either of the seats they are defending.
Many in the party machine are already resigned to losing Copeland in Cumbria to the Tories — which would be the first time in more than 30 years a governing party has gained a seat in a by-election — and are now concentrating on trying to hold off Ukip in Stoke Central.
This desperate rearguard action — prompted by two of its more talented MPs resigning because they couldn’t bear to simply stay on and stand down in 2020 — is revealing of the trouble Labour are in.
Their leader is more unpopular than Michael Foot was at this stage in his leadership — and Foot led Labour to the humiliating 1983 General Election defeat that handed Margaret Thatcher a 144-seat majority and paved the way for 14 more years of Tory rule.
Labour are polling as low as 24 per cent and are only the third most popular party among working-class voters, their traditional support base.
Discipline has broken down so badly in the Parliamentary Labour Party that even the enforcers of discipline, the whips, are defying their leader in the Commons’ voting lobbies and getting away with it.
But don’t think defeat in either Copeland or Stoke would spell the immediate end of Jeremy Corbyn. Why?
Because Labour would have lost in places that voted Brexit — and the alternatives to Corbyn are more anti-Brexit than he is.
It would be the political equivalent of a waiter saying: “You’re teetotal, so I’ll bring you whisky instead of beer.”
Tony Blair wants Labour to set itself against Brexit, to be the opposition to it. But given that seven in ten Labour seats voted for it, this is a non-starter as an electoral strategy.
It might work for the Liberal Democrats as it tries to go from nine to 40 seats. But it can’t work for Labour as it tries to keep hold of the 232 seats won at the last election.
Just imagine if Labour replaced Corbyn with Clive Lewis, the Shadow Business Secretary who resigned rather than vote for Article 50 to be triggered.
Support for Labour would rocket in pro-Remain areas. They would have a charismatic new champion.
But in all those Labour seats that voted Leave, there would be anger the party was trying to stymie the referendum result.
On Brexit, Corbyn has been a pragmatist. It isn’t realistic for Labour to stand against the result, or be seen to do so.
This has hurt Corbyn’s standing among the new membership he has attracted.
These ultras didn’t vote for him because he was a pragmatic politician. Quite the opposite. In the end, this might do for him.
But right now Labour have no alternative on Brexit and no viable alternative to Corbyn.
And however much they loathe the position they are in, most Labour MPs know this.
Immigration bill is big challenge
WHAT immigration system will Britain have post-Brexit?
The Government’s Brexit White Paper deliberately left this question unanswered.
I understand there will be no new Immigration Bill until the Great Repeal Bill, which puts EU law into British law, is through parliament.
But one option being looked at in Government would see EU nationals with a job and means of support allowed to come here but barred from accessing the welfare system.
This would mean they would not qualify for tax credits or social housing. There is also some talk of people gradually gaining access to the system.
The thinking goes that this approach would mean only those whose jobs pay enough to genuinely support them would move here.
Immigration figures out on Thursday next week will be studied in Government to see if the Brexit vote has created a rush of people entering Britain – or, as some recent data has suggested, seen EU migrants begin to leave.
But getting immigration right is one of the big challenges for Brexit Britain.
No will for war in Lords
THE Brexit Bill starts making its way through the Lords next week.
The expectation among Tory peers is that while the amendment unilaterally guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals living in Britain will probably pass, the upper house will back down if the Commons subsequently strips it out of the Bill. I’m told most peers don’t want to scupper Mrs May’s plan to invoke Article 50 by the end of March. They know only too well that doing so could prompt a constitutional crisis of which THEY would end up being the victims.
Ultimate test of Nuttall's New-kip
NIGEL FARAGE publicly declaring the Stoke Central by-election is do or die for his successor Paul Nuttall isn’t exactly helpful.
But in private, the new leader’s allies don’t dissent that much from Farage’s analysis.
“It is the highest-stakes by-election in Ukip’s history,” one of them admits.
If Ukip don’t win, they’ll have put up their leader in one of their best Labour-facing seats at a time when their opponents are in a total mess . . . and still failed.
However, if they can pull it off Ukip will – for the first time ever – have their leader in the House of Commons.
Nuttall will be there at Prime Minister’s Questions and all the other big parliamentary moments.
They’ll have shown they aren’t just a one-band man and that there is life after Farage.
Ukip will be the party with the wind at its back.
At Westminster, there is a sense that Paul Nuttall’s admission that he didn’t actually lose a close personal friend at Hillsborough has put paid to his chances.
But those involved in the the Ukip campaign claim there is no sense on the ground the by-election is slipping away from them.
They say the campaign is, in contrast to some previous Ukip efforts, doing the basics well.
They also think they are being helped by the Lib Dems eating into the Labour vote from the Remain side.
If Ukip wins this by-election, they will double the number of MPs they have.
They will have proved there is life after the referendum for them.
But if they don’t win, Nuttall will struggle for relevance.
One state solution is not a preferred option for Israeli PM
SENIOR figures in the Trump administration have moved to reassure the British Government that too much shouldn’t be read into Donald Trump’s suggestion the US might accept a one-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian problem.
The word is that this was just “pragmatic language”. I also understand that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, remains clear in private that a one-state solution is not his preferred option.
- James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator