On Brexit, Keir Starmer is making the same mistakes as Jeremy Corbyn

Where have all the Remainers gone? Less than a year ago, a mass movement existed committed to fighting Brexit until its last breath. A multitude of national organisations mobilised a huge political coalition, organising the biggest protests since the Iraq War. At its grassroots were hundreds of local groups, running stalls and public meetings. Now, with the government announcing its intention to proceed with a no deal Brexit in less than four months, the anti-Brexit movement is almost silent.

For all the endless punditry, it is impossible to tell whether Boris Johnson intends to actually proceed with no deal or this is just a stunt that will allow him to claim a concession before inevitably signing an agreement. But the truth is that with or without a deal, the realities of a Brexit led by Boris Johnson will be bleak.

What lies ahead is perhaps the most extreme deregulation and erection of borders that this country has ever experienced. The end of free movement will mean the biggest expansion of immigration controls in decades. A trade deal with the US could mean an irreversible privatisation of the NHS, and will mean a downgrading in our food and consumer standards.

The proponents of Brexit were always clear that their agenda was to “cut red tape”, but the extent of the deregulation agenda is still hard to compute: we are looking at an unprecedented race to the bottom on workplace rights, environmental standards and tax. The government is currently consulting on plans to create “free ports” – potentially designating whole cities as low regulation tax havens.

Rejoining the EU is a lost cause in the immediate term, but given that the government’s Brexit agenda represents a devastating attack on the rights and prosperity of so many people, the absence of a strong opposition on Brexit – either in parliament or in the streets – is striking. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader elected in large part because of his Remainer credentials, has remained silent on the subject at every available opportunity. What few public pronouncements he has made on the subject are delivered in the blandest terms possible.

We’ve been here before, of course. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn was also deeply reluctant to take proactive public stands on anything related to Brexit. Labour’s policy, cooked up in backrooms rather than in a democratic process, evolved about a year behind the political landscape. Everything was based on narrow electoral calculation and parliamentary chess playing. Setting out a clear principled policy, either for soft Brexit or later for a pro-Remain position, was viewed as falling into some kind of trap set by the Conservatives, and so Labour fudged and hid.

The irony is that Keir Starmer is now doing almost exactly the same thing. In doing so, he is being cheered on by many people who were sharply critical of Corbyn’s dithering, and slammed by others who only a year ago supported exactly this strategy.

The whole point of triangulating on Brexit is that it delivers electoral victory. The problem is that it demonstrably does not. In failing to loudly oppose the government’s agenda, the Labour leadership thinks that it is being terribly clever, ducking the issue and waiting for Johnson’s strategy to unravel. But in doing so, it is only giving the Tories more space and time to control the narrative. Corbyn’s constant handbrake turns on Brexit meant that Labour had no opportunity to set out a clear policy and campaign to convince the public of it. The result was its annihilation at the 2019 general election.

No amount of economic damage will be enough to sink Boris Johnson if the government is allowed to set the narrative about who is to blame. No amount of deregulation, deportation of EU citizens or loss of living standards will shock or repel the public if the government is allowed to present it as normal. There is no point in Starmer urging the Prime Minister to get a deal if he does not say what kind.

It is urgent that Labour starts campaigning around an alternative vision for Britain after Brexit. This shouldn’t be hard, because it already has a full alternative policy, democratically established at its conference and supported by Starmer in his leadership campaign. Continued free movement, single market access and improved, rather than eroded, protections for workers, migrants and the environment: these could form a basis for Labour’s policy, both now and at the next election.

Remainers are silent because they are demoralised, but the part of the public which was rallied in opposition to the right wing nationalist politics of Brexit is still out there. Labour’s road to victory was and remains finding this new mass base, and marrying it to working class organisation and a renewed radical politics. If it fails to energetically fight the Tories’ Brexit agenda, progressives will get more demoralised, Dominic Cummings will decide the new normal, and we will wake up in five years’ time in an economy modelled on Singapore, with nobody even promising to take us back.