Analysis comment

Video: as Labour looks to reconnect with leave towns, Phillips: “I’ll fight to rejoin EU”

Leadership hopeful demonstrates why no MP who pushed remain can take Labour on the road back to power
Jess Phillips on Marr this morning

Yardley MP Jess Phillips, who hopes to become the next leader of the Labour Party, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr this morning that she will ‘fight’ to take the UK back into the EU if she believes the country will be better off:

As the SKWAWKBOX wrote last night, there is no road back to power that does not involve Labour retaking the leave towns it lost last month – and no MP who pushed remain, whether from the left or right of the party, can lead Labour along that road.

The millions of leavers who voted Labour in 2017 turned their back on the party because of the perception of die-hard remain MPs disrespecting leavers’ votes and opinions. They will not forget that disrespect, even after Brexit is completed.

Ms Phillips’ continued attachment to remain – or eventually ‘return’ – demonstrates why no MP who pushed the so-called “people’s vote” or ‘stop Brexit’ campaigns is going to persuade those voters that Labour has learned its lesson and will treat them and their votes with respect.

Because such MPs have not learned – even though we’re not yet a month from seeing the consequences of that damaging stance.

Keir Starmer’s launch video, which refers glowingly to his attempts to prevent ‘Tory Brexit’ – and Jess Phillips’ interview this morning – both show how deeply ingrained the problem is.

Labour members must elect a leader who stood up for the votes of his or her constituents even when it was not easy to do so. If the party hopes to return to power for the sake of the millions suffering poverty and misery under the Tories, there is no alternative.

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31 comments

  1. And there you have it, why we need to let centrists go and poison their own party
    We will negotiate to rejoin EU and throw leave voters under the bus
    If she had a brain she would have said where there is a consultant demand for another referendum 60% plus we might look at it
    But for now we have list the argument and the result must be honoured
    Why are politicians so shit at politics

  2. Ok but will she pledge to join the Euro and adopt true freedom of movement within the Member states?

    1. Why EU does NOT work
      On what planet does the euro work unless you countenance astronomic transfers of wealth between member states, one currency, parliament, army, central bank
      Worked ever so well in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain
      Lose neo liberal economics and concentrate on level playing fields and usurping yankee dollar as reserve currency then we might join

  3. It’s sad that Labour is still fighting makes on s Leave/ Remain basis. That bird has flown and were need to look forward, not back.
    Besides, rejoining within 10 years ain’t gonna happen. And even then it all depends on how frustrated we are.

    1. … and, in actuality, Phillips is, of course, the most appealing old candidate to those ‘new conservatives’ in the industrial areas. They will love her and her schtick.

  4. Those advocating rejoining the EU must surely spell out whether or not they see England becoming part of a Federal State sharing the same currency and legal system because after all that is the stated object of the Union. The EU might also be interested in the answers as they consider whether to approve or not. It’s a long long road back and to do it with an electoral majority might have to wait a 100 years at least?Meanwhile let Phillips keep digging; she’d do well in Australia perhaps?

  5. Anyone see The Times’ middle two-page spread for Phillips yesterday ? And then the drivelling supportive Times editorial bigging this total balloon of a politician up in the same issue ? Wonderful stuff , in a ‘oh my god – how can an MP be so totally unaware of their own shallowness and out of control ego ?’ kinda way ! apart from her laughable ego constantly on display, Phillips’ two pager was notable for her utter lack of any actual policies – other than an expressed willingness to amalgamate with the Lib Dems.

    Apart from the rather serious problem we have as a party that , after four years of Left Leadership , the PLP is still totally dominated by the corrupt , careerist, neoliberal right and ‘centrists’ ) ludicrously mis-described as the ‘soft Left’ – with not one deselected . We are therefore stuck with a PLP for five years which will sabotage any even vaguely Let-leaning new Leader.

    And , although Skwawkbox is totally correct to expose the ludicrous , still very much alive ‘Let’s still stay in , or even REJOIN, the totally neoliberal EU’, electorally suicidal policy espoused by Phillips this weekend – the tragic reality is that most of our middle class, Left-Liberal, totally pro EU, MEMBERSHIP , probably agree with her, and Starmer, and all the other totally pro Remain, Leadership hopefuls ! Let’s not kid ourselves that the nominally ‘radical Corbynist Left’ in our membership have done any radical rethink of their uncritical pro EU beliefs since we got our arses kicked by our former Labour voting heartlands in December. There is no evidence at all on any Leftie blogs of that having happened. Total denial rules. It’s apparently all the fault of those deserting ‘knuckle-dragging, stupid, racist, unwoke , etc, etc) working class Labour voters for not following the political wisdom of their middle class politico betters ! So the opportunity is undoubtedly there for a Left-faking Leadership candidate (not the right wing numbskull egotist Phillips obviously) to win the Leadership with a part of their policy plank offer still being uncritically pro EU, even rejoining. Betcha I’m right, Skwawky, electorally suicidal as that would be, as you correctly explain.

    1. Lesson No. 1, Ha’Penny. The new conservatives know and care nothing for the actuality of the EU. And they won’t give a flying fuck if the weather changes – other than what the brainwashing of the bogpaper press instills.

    2. As an enthusiastic supporter of the last two Labour Manifestoes and keen supporter of Corbyn as Leader I find your approach difficult because like many in places far away about which we know nothing, I voted to Leave the EU and haven’t changed my mind. A Federal European State was always the destination and had been since the early 1940’s (yes!) and I’ve never envisioned any such possibility

      1. If push comes to shove, I’d prefer to be part of a European federal state (not by any means a likely culmination) to being a subservient client state of the US (a certain alternative, already beginning with the trepidation over condemning acts of war)

      2. Well it’s a close call! Realistically I think we’ll end up with something very close to being in a customs Union, although of course nobody will call it that. The attraction is that it would save UK industrial employment while buggering a Trump trade deal by insisting on EU standards. This would follow a slump and rocketing unemployment as we go into 2021 that would rouse the Tory masses to boot out the wierdos and misfits that have captured their party and will be driving it to ruin.

    1. That’s the problem. the Tory policy (backed by Lexiteers) has shafted the country and made it a client state whichever way it turns.

    2. Yes. All new entrants will not enjoy the rights and exceptions that we had.
      Nice for me but not for the Euro haters.

    3. Yes
      So would need to see a radical shift in economic policy
      How about QE / Socialism for the 95%
      The Redcar article is poor by any standards, they could have waited 6 months for landslide leave vote
      I voted leave, I respect the result I have zero respect for Tory scabs
      I think he mentions his grandad spinning in his grave, too f7cking right

  6. 40 seconds in ‘We have to wait and see’. This is the response from the wannabe labour party leader mimi who has never said wait and see for the last 3 years since the referendum and has worked 100% for Labour to be remain since that result.

    Why could she not be united with the party’s decision to respect the 2016 result, respect the partys 2017 G.E leave plans and ‘WAIT AND SEE’ after that ?????

    IMO, Jess Phillips is a charlatan, a trans hater and a racist

      1. Jess has called the demands of the Transphobic group Woman’s place UK ‘Completely reasonable’

  7. The best thing for Jess Phillips constituents would have been a Labour Government, in or out of the EU. She was one of those who enabled the Tories winning in 2019. Her constituents should note that for future reference. I’m not a fan.

  8. Not a single Labour candidate begged the question wheres Boris, whereas the Russian report
    And why have the MSM and toilet papers not called out the dirtiest GE in my lifetime
    Oh and where did Boris celebrate victory

  9. Here’s a tip… Vote for a complete c**t and a known liar. It works for the Tories.

  10. RemainerThorberry unnessessarily attacked Venezuela thus giving succour to the US Neo-Cons and perhaps the US want their oil and a puppet in OPEC? No thanks!
    Lewis good socialist bloke but Remainer fanatic thus showing himself lacking in some socialist analysis?
    Starmer and Phillips 2 of the Remain architects of Labour’s defeat – political dumb and political dumber?
    Burgon good and good anslysis plus well read.
    Hopefully time for the big political boy and girl to enter the stage.

  11. I don’t know what we are arguing about the boat has sailed under the Tory flag and some of our mps need to get on the boat and get out of our socialist Labour party..

  12. What is the big idea from the centrists,
    If I’m reading it right they accept the 2017 manifesto, which shows JC has moved the party away from Red Tories
    On leadership as soon as the vexatious claims of anti semitism come in from right wing conservative Zionists, then what
    What is their media strategy and what is their response to the dirtiest GE in my lifetime
    Are we really going to carry on with business as usual which overwhelmingly favours cheap and nasties
    Stop playing the game and start framing the story for Labour party

  13. One would have thought that the tapeworms would be sated and gone into hibernation. However, they are everywhere. Her ladyship Ms. Gums is so unpleasant that instead of lurking in the belly she just keeps banging her drum in the media, who for their own nefarious reasons cater to her whims. Why are the TW’s never asked why on earth are they in the party. The sleepers have outwitted us. This has been a clever demolition of the party. I felt suspicious ever since clause 4 was dropped but I never stopped supporting our 2017 manifesto and telling all and sundry that we would win but I knew we were stuffed because of our peculiar position on a second referendum. 10 years of torment for the working and no apologies from the saboteurs. Gums and chums disgust me. Happy new year even though they don’t want us to have one.

  14. With Scottish Independence Boris says together we are stronger
    With the EU Boris says we are stronger on our own

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