Labour shifts to back a customs union with EU after Brexit (Sky News)
news.sky.com/story/labour-shifts-to-back-a-customs-union-with-eu-after-brexit-11267193
Sir Keir Starmer Labours Shadow Brexit secretary said Labour had "unanimously" agreed at a meeting last week to "develop" their Brexit policy.
He said: "It's a customs union… there's going to have to be a new agreement, but will it do the work of the current customs union? Yes, that's the intention."
Sir Keir admitted Labour's position means it will have to be "negotiated" as to who is in control of Britain's trade policy after Brexit.
He said: "We will have to have a say but the real point is - because we all want trade agreements, we all want more trade agreements - are we more likely to get them if we do it jointly with the EU or on our own?
From Labour Leave. (below) The Andrew Marr interview.
Marr: After we leave, who will be in charge of trade policy?
Starmer: That will have to be negotiated.
"Keir_Starmer confirms a Labour government would sell out the British public on Brexit and tie us into a protectionist Customs Union with the EU. Shameful!"
Tomorrow the legal text of what “full regulatory alignment” means in practice.
Watch and listen to the hard right and the DUP. They are breaking their necks to finish with the GFA.
10 hours of the HoL discussing the loss of agencies like the European Medicines Agency, Erasmus, Eurotom amongst other self inflicted wounds.
Sheer madness
durhamjen
"Kate Hoey has rebelled 400 times since 1997.
Corbyn has rebelled 500 times. She's not that far behind, is she?"---
That is in part because they both walked through the same lobby to vote against the European Union on so many occassions .
Dennis Skinner would have joined them too and he made that point when he was recently castigated because he dared stick to his principal and defied Party Orders and voted for the EU Withdrawal Bill.
When did you last vote Labour?
I'm afraid your ideas just make me cringe, Day6.
"How has the Labour position shifted?
Labour’s 2017 manifesto said merely that the party wanted to retain “the benefits of the single market and the customs union”, and did not say the UK should stay in either. In recent months, however, a series of senior Labour figures have argued for the UK to be in “a” customs union post-Brexit.
What’s the difference between “a” customs union and “the” customs union?
Labour says the latter is the existing arrangement, which ends when we leave the EU, and that “a” union could retain the bulk of the benefits without overly tying the UK to rules made in Brussels. Critics, mainly in the government, argue that this could be seen as Labour’s own version of an unrealistic “cake and eat it” approach.
Why has Labour's position moved?
Corbyn has never seemed that keen on the customs union, but he has faced pressure both from members of his team – the shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer has played a key role – and the fact that the majority of Labour members support customs union and single market membership. There is also the incentive that Labour could defeat the government in the Commons by voting with Tory rebels on an amendment to back the customs union."
From the Guardian.
"I grant you the Labour Party Members in Vauxhall probably do ' want rid of ' Kate Hoey but unless they deselect her, again a distinct probability"
Oh you do make me laugh DJ.
" A distinct probability"...hilarious. A foregone conclusion is what it is.
Poor woman. Momentum are instructing a purge.
She raised her head above the parapet. If only some of her colleagues in the Labour Party had the integrity and bravery to do the same. A majority of MPs refused to follow Corbyn a few years ago. I am beginning to think the Labour Party benches in the Commons have become the resting place of two-faced, self-serving career politicians.
The Independent's headline less than 2 years ago:
Jeremy Corbyn loses 'no confidence' vote among Labour MPs by 172 to 40
Only 40 followers. And now Momentum get in on the act. Those 172, if they haven't gone already, need to watch their backs or do some serious sucking up.
Makes you think......
Day6, she doesn't represent her constituents, and only goes to parliament half the time. It will be nothing to do with Momentum if she is deselected.
www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Kate_Hoey&mpc=Vauxhall&house=commons
Only Stringer rebels more than her.
Even Clarke has only rebelled 25%; Soubry 9%, but at least they turn up to vote.
I have a feeling that Tory and Libdem voters want rid of Kate Hoey, POGS. They would be strange if they didn't!
Only 22% of Vauxhall voters voted to leave. They were number 640 out of 650 constituencies.
She hardly represents her constituents. She has only attended 50% of the votes this parliament. It was even less last year, 47%
I hear the bookmakers won't take bets on Kate Hoey being deselected. It's a foregone conclusion - she is a Labour rebel and speaks out against the EU. Momentum have marked her card.
The Momentum line - 'Do as we say, stay onside, or we dispose of you.'
Nice, kind, compassionate Trots.
"Without a form of customs union or arrangement, border checks are an inconvenient inevitability. Without a customs union the current fudge over the border between North and South on the island of Ireland will inevitably become untenable. No one wants a return to the conflict of the past. The price of abandoning any kind of customs union is too high and I won't support it.
There is also a simple truth that there is no Parliamentary majority for a walk-away, no-deal Brexit. The small band of hard Brexiteer MPs need to stop throwing down red lines like spaghetti and stop threatening to remove the PM unless she bends to their will. The PM has herself spoken clearly of wanting a customs agreement with the EU and NC5 is compatible with that as it does not call for 'the' Customs Union on existing terms. My role as an MP is to read the evidence and to clearly state the case for what I believe is in the best interests of my constituency and the country even if that is sometimes wilfully misrepresented by those who simply want us to walk away, whatever the unintended consequences."
Sarah Wollaston shows more concern for Ireland than Kate Hoey.
Oh I see the lefties are sticking the knives into one of their own now because she speaks out for many Labour leave voters who want out of the EU.
Poor Kate Hoey. It's amusing to watch the Labour faithful showing their true colours.
Is she one of the few who has principles and doesn't blow with the wind, unlike the leader of the party?
durhamjen
You do not know what her constituents think!
Vauxhall constituency voters kept Kate Hoey as their Labour MP knowing she voted Leave. If the constituency voters of Vauxhall felt let down by Kate Hoey and wanted to show their distain and wanted a Remain MP they could have voted for George Turner the Lib Dem Candidate but they showed a tad more respect for the Labour Candidate than some Labour Party Members obviously do.
The Labour vote in Vauxhall was 31.576 . The Labour Party Members numbership is approximately 2.500 I believe .
You are repeating / relaying information from the Labour Party Members in Vauxhall but you have absolutely no knowledge of how the bulk of the constituency voters would/will vote if Kate Hoey is not deselected by the next General Election, nor do you know that the bulk of the Vauxhall constituency voters who are not Labour Party Members. ' want rid of Kate Hoey '.
I grant you the Labour Party Members in Vauxhall probably do ' want rid of ' Kate Hoey but unless they deselect her, again a distinct probability, then only a General Election with Kate Hoey standing as the Labour Candidate can possibly show what the Vauxhall Constituents want and who ' ' they want rid of '.
Sarah Wollaston on Newsnight was extremely good. She talked about the problems of borders if we have a hard Brexit.
www.drsarah.org.uk/sarah's-blog/a-customs-union-or-arrangement-is-in-all-our/2568
"I think Labour voters generally welcome Corbyn’s clarification of Labour’s Brexit thinking, not considering it a “backtracking” or “betrayal” at all."
That may comfort you but most sources are saying Corbyn is looking for power and using Brexit as his vehicle in hoping to split the commons. He was a renowned Eurosceptic, even at the time of the referendum when he kept a very low profile because he believed we should leave the EU.
It's amazing how this 'man of principle' has ditched them because he sniffs a bit of power. He is showing himself to be a dishonest, self seeking, hypocritical Socialist. He has even taken a giant airbrush to his website, cleansing it of all the things he once stood for. Fortunately, most of them were recorded and people do have long memories.
He has sold out for the sake of power. I wonder if he can live with his conscience?
Kate Hoey has rebelled 400 times since 1997.
Corbyn has rebelled 500 times. She's not that far behind, is she?
Maybe Hoey cares more about the rights of British citizens,
Now there’s a first!
All the ‘kinder politics’ stuff is laughable when you consider how activists are sticking the knives in!
Dou you realise how many times Corbyn rebelled against the Labour Party? 
On 8 Feb 2017: Kate Hoey voted against seeking to protect the residence rights of citizens of the European Union and their family members who were lawfully resident in the United Kingdom on 23 June 2016.
On 13 Mar 2017: Kate Hoey voted against guaranteeing EU derived rights, and the potential to acquire residency rights, for EU and EEA citizens legally resident in the UK.
Kate Hoey couldn't care less about the rights of EU citizens already living here. I imagine there are quite a few in Vauxhall. That's not kinder politics.
Her constituency voted to remain, so not just Labour wanting her out.
What's wrong with that?
She wants a hard Brexit and thinks the Good Friday Agreement is unsustainable.
She's Irish and couldn't care less about Ireland.
It's nothing to do with Momentum, either, or Jeremy Corbyn. Her constituents feel let down by her.
Constituents are allowed to deselect, aren't they? It's called democracy.
"Democracy isn't democracy if you are not allowed to change your mind."
What do you expect me to say - oh, dear, poor old Kate Hoey rebels against the party and they have kindly asked her to leave, but I feel really sorry for her. She shouldn't be treated like that.
durhamjen
"Why do you quote Kate Hoey?
Her own constituency want rid of her now"----
I think you mean the Labour Party members in her constituency ' want rid of her '. Nice term to use by the way but par for the course in Corbyns ' Kinder Politics Era. '
They are a different entity to the ' voters ' in Kate Hoey's constituency who may not ' want rid of her '.
Kate Hoey is a successful Labour MP in her constituency and was openly a Leave voter in the E U Referendum. If her constituency wanted ' rid of her ' they had the opportunity to do so in the last General Election but in 2017 she held on to the seat of Vauxhall winning 57.4% of the vote (31,576) which was a 3.6% increase from 2015.
Now it could well be the case she continues to be a target for deselection by the Local Labour Party members and she will be ' got rid of ' but if they do not deselect her it will be up to the voters of Vauxhall to give her their backing or not.
However I dare say Kate Hoey and the many other Labour MP's worried about deselection are so used to the calls for their deselection they are used to it by now. Another pointer to Corbyns ' Kinder Politics Era'.
DUP and “cheap opportunism”! dj
LOL!
And Sunderland.
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/02/26/on-the-balance-of-both-probabilities-and-economic-and-political-sanity-jeremy-corbyn-did-a-good-mornings-work/
A good article. What I like is that the comments are always sensible, too, on the whole.
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