With next month's General Election fast approaching, the former Labour MEP Mary Honeyball believes that Brexit is this election's elephant in the room. She argues that, by refusing to address the United Kingdom's relationship with the European Union, both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak risk furthering the social and economic crises facing the country.
Brexit, this election’s elephant in the room, hides in plain sight as the two main political parties speak of other things. Both Labour and the Conservatives are resolutely refusing to engage fully with Britain’s future relationship with the EU even though, eight years after the referendum, this remains the major issue facing Britain’s economy as well as the country’s role in the world. While Labour talks in very general terms about discussing closer links with the EU, the Conservative Prime Minister flits around the country resolutely not talking about it at all. Both leaders are silently wishing Brexit away as if EU membership never happened and leaving the bloc had had no adverse consequences.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, both main parties refuse to recognise Brexit as the main source of many of the nation’s ills. The hard truth is that Britain needs a strong relationship with the European Union, preferably as it was before Brexit. Going it alone has not worked. The trade agreements concluded since Brexit largely reflect those the UK had while a member of the EU, hardly surprising given that countries inevitably do most trade with their closest neighbours. Britain’s economy has gone downhill during the last few years. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that the UK will fall to the bottom of the GDP growth league next year at one per cent. Germany, according to the OECD, will have a 1.1% growth rate while that of the USA and Canada will be 1.8%. Global growth will top 3.2%. Britain’s shortage of both skilled and unskilled workers in sectors including agriculture, hospitals and care homes caused by workers no longer coming to Britain from the European Union is still causing the county serious problems. First and foremost, among them is the cost of living crisis.
That both Labour and the Conservatives are in this state of denial speaks to huge flaws in the British political system. The unpalatable truth is that Labour still sees its path to victory in winning back the “red wall”, leave voting seats it lost in 2019, while the Conservative Party is in the grip of a hard-right faction that truly believes Britannia still rule the waves. The Brexit tin ear on both sides is both extraordinary and damaging. Such a lack of attention by the two leading parties on an issue which will shape the future of the country has never before occurred in modern times. While political parties obviously have to win elections, policies on all the big issues must be discussed to achieve a democratic mandate. Allowing a silent elephant in the room takes power away from the people.
The first past the post voting system encourages Labour to put forward policies tailored to a few “battleground” seats, while today’s Conservative Party seeks to appease its right wing to try and stop Conservative voters going to Reform. In other words, the oldies in the former Labour industrial seats and the pensioners who turn out to vote and look backwards rather than forwards, rule the campaign. Brexit was by and large their hope rather than that of the young. Far more older people supported Brexit than younger voters. According to Statista, 60 per cent of those aged 65 and over voted for leave while only 27 per cent of the 18 – 34 age group did so. Older people across the political spectrum tend see Britain’s future as its past – a Great Power with an Empire going it alone as graphically illustrated by victory in the Second World War and still romanticised in films such as Darkest Hour.
The backwards looking thinking has become very pronounced over defence. Both parties are committed to 2.5 per cent of GDP being spent on defence, higher than the two per cent NATO expects. While the Conservatives talk about reintroducing national service which was abolished in 1960, Labour appears even more jingoistic. The plan to build four new nuclear submarines and undertake all necessary upgrades would, according to the Nuclear Information Service, cost £172 billion from 2019 to 2070. More digestible is the National Audit Office report stating that the cost of the nuclear deterrent was £7.9 billion over budget in 2023. Such levels of spending on nuclear defence inevitably require sacrifices elsewhere. Backwards looking policies may well mean the NHS becoming ever more stressed, more people relying on food banks, more sub-standard housing, less money for childcare and an increase in child poverty, particularly since Labour is committed to maintaining the two-child cap.
While Labour and the Conservatives compete for older voters, 80 per cent of the population is under sixty-five. A person has to be 85 or older to have any living recollection of the Second World War. Meanwhile, Brexit demands engagement and attention rather than the kind of thinking that hopes it will go away. Policy on the major issue facing this country needs to be dynamic and achievable, addressing voters’ concerns. A We Think voter intention poll published on 1st June found that 58 per cent of Britons think Brexit and Britain’s relationship with the European Union should be one of the main issues in the election. Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak take note ...
Mary Honeyball is Honorary Research Fellow at the Mile End Institute and was a Labour Member of the European Parliament from 2000 to 2019 representing London.