Manuel Cortes: Labour’s single market shift is a good start – but there’s no deal better than staying in the EU

As Keynes wisely remarked, when the facts change, I change my mind. It’s great to see Keir Starmer and Labour’s leadership now putting clear red water between us and the Tories over Brexit. The Tories lack of an arithmetic majority in parliament can now be severely tested even after their bung to the DUP. Theresa May has indicated she will go voluntarily by August 2019. We can ensure she doesn’t last that long. With Labour now calibrated to oppose Tory Brexit plans with vigour, if we vote against their bill when it returns to the Commons next month, we can defeat the government and force the new election we want.

Our union has long argued that all options must remain on Labour’s negotiating table. In line with our party’s people’s Brexit conference decision last September, staying put may be the best cause of action to protect jobs and safeguard our livelihoods. It may be too early to tell whether this will be best deal on offer although the mood music increasingly suggests this. Labour must be bold and continue to develop the new narrative to guide our nation’s ship to safe harbour away from Brexit’s choppy waters.

We mustn’t fall for the trap of membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) or European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA). Let’s not have an American Revolution in reverse by opting for taxation without representation. Shadow secretary of state for international trade, Barry Gardiner, rightly pointed out this route will lead Britain to become the world’s first ever vassal state by choice. Staying in the single market and the customs union is looking like the best option from which to defend our jobs and our livelihoods. But sacrificing our voice on the Brexit alter to do so is just plain daft.

Just imagine having to tell voters on the doorstep under EEA or EFTA we now pay a large fee to access the single market whilst still abiding by huge sways of European Union legislation but we can no longer shape want happens. Likely to go down with the British public like the proverbial lead balloon. On trade, joining either new form of customs union will not only mean we can’t negotiate our own trade deals but neither will we any longer have a say when the EU is negotiating them. Of course, there is a simple solution to all of this – which has the benefit of saving us the huge divorce bill – staying put. The Brexit juice just ain’t worth the economic squeeze. Labour’s new narrative current should flow in this direction if staying put is the best way to protect our jobs and our economy.

Our party must stop talking about curbing free movement and instead start beefing up our 2017 manifesto policies for regulating our labour market and ending workers’ exploitation. We must stop giving oxygen to xenophobes. There I have said it. The whole principle of the Tory/UKIP Brexit is structured to crush the rights of all workers and their families in Britain. Labour is the antidote to this. From a £10 an hour minimum wage to sectoral collective bargaining, our party has the right answers. Our promised new ministry of labour will have sufficient teeth to stop unscrupulous bosses in their tracks.

Let’s face it, several generations of building workers have been forced into bogus self-employment because of Thatcher, not the EU. Millions of our citizens have been left behind from 1979 onwards because of economic policies made in Westminster, not because of free movement. And to blame the EU or its citizens for our malaise just lets our ruling class of the hook. They really don’t deserve this. It’s their ideological neoliberal drive which, by design, has left so many of our people behind. We must confront those voters who think otherwise with a clear policy agenda which inspires hope rather than lets despair fester and xenophobia to flourish. Jeremy Corbyn’s 2017 manifesto showed Labour is well on the way to doing so. We must now focus our efforts not on a toxic and divisive Brexit debate, but on building on his efforts. Let Labour take a positive vision to our doorsteps of a Britain were no one will be left behind.

Manuel Cortes is general secretary of the TSSA, and an early backer of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.