UK Labour opts for softest Brexit; EU, Japan cold shoulder Britain

 Britain’s Opposition Labour party has decided to go for continued membership of the European Union single market beyond March 2019, when Britain leaves the EU. The party decision follows marathon discussions led by Labour Shadow Brexit Scretary, Keir Starmer, and party chief Jeremy Corbyn late last week.

The move has sparked an  all-out  intra party fierce debate and even split in both Labour and Tory ranks and is sure to dominate the national scene in the coming days and weeks.

Meanwhile Britian’s ongoing Brexit talks with the European Union seem to be going nowhere with EU negotiators ridiculing British stand as “non-serious. ” Further afield the UK’s upcoming talks with Japan for enhanced trade relations appear to be heading for a cold response with Japan giving priority to talks with EU before anything else.

In its clearest stand yet on the Brexit issue, Labour  would not only continue to accept the EU’s free movement rules, accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice on trade and economic issues, and pay into the EU budget for a period of years after Brexit, it  even leaves the door open for continued EU membership with some leeway for immigration control, if accepted by the EU.

The Liberal party under its new leader Vince Cable has already called for a fresh referendum  to reverse the earlier decision. The Scottish and Welsh First ministers have long favoured to keep Britain in the EU. The former Labour leader  Ed Milliband and the mayor  of London, Sadiq Khan, have also made their position clear in favour  of a fresh referendum or remaining in the EU.

Meanwhile the uncertainty created by Britain’s internal voices against immigration  has led to outflow of European immigrants who feel unwelcome in the UK. Already nearly 50,000 have gone back to their homelands in the recent few months. Liberal leader Cable has even  described the return of the much needed European workers as “brain drain.”

  

Labour’s  policy shift , first revealed in the Observer newspaper on Sunday, aims at softening the impact of  hard exit on the UK economy. The move  comes as music to the ears of not only  pro-EU Labour backers, but could sway a sizeable faction within the Tory ranks who have already raised voices against any hard Brexit. It  could virtually pave the way for Labour leader   Jeremy Corbyn’s  party  leaving  open the option of the UK remaining a member of the customs union and single market for good, beyond the end of the transitional period.

 In the new scenario voters will have a clear choice between the two main parties on the UK’s future relations with the EU. Till now,   since last year’s referendum, Labour’s approach has been criticised for lacking clarity and looked no different from that of the Tories.

The scene is set for a highly charged national debate when the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill returns to the House of Commons for its second reading on 7 September.

The upheaval triggered by Labour’s policy shift inevitably will lead  to an internal shake-out  within the Tory party. Pro-EU Tory MPs, who also support remaining in the single market, will come under intense pressure to come out and declare their stand clearly. The Tory Remainers or anti- Brexiters have a sizeable strength within the party and could make the position  of Prime Minister Theresa May even shakier that it already is.

Immigration has been the long obsession of the UK and remains so till this day, though opposition voices have begun to surface now after decades of a virtual xenophobia. Foreign students , especially from the Commonwealth countries and parts of Africa, have been special targets of Tory governments who have for long declared their resolve to cut immigration to tens of thousands from hundreds of thousands, including overseas students said to be  overstaying in huge numbers.

 A new government survey has just revealed that 97 per cent students actually return home after completing their studies. Barely three per cent students overstay compared with the government’s widely circulated fears of nearly “40 per cent overstayers,”  Prime Minister Theresa May, who previously had been Home Secretary for six long years,  has  been one of the chief hardliners against immigrants.

Tailpiece.  A top ranking nationalist party leader of UKIP, the anti-immigrant  party, John Rees-Evans, has said immigrants should be offered grants of up to pounds 9,000 plus health insurance other benefits to return home permanently.