The UK government has got a Brexit deal done… but not one with the EU

The UK government has got a Brexit deal done. No, not one with the European Union – they’ve reached a compromise with their own MPs on the controversial internal market bill. 10 Downing Street issued a joint statement last night with critics Damian Green and Bob Neill. They have agreed to the principle of the Neill amendment: that there should be a parliamentary lock on the use of certain powers in the bill, which would allow MPs to decide whether ministers can break international law.

This does not address Labour’s concerns, however. The opposition party was quiet on the question of whether it would support the Neill amendment last week because the change doesn’t fix the basic problem of writing into law – and normalising – the act of law breaking by the government. Telling the world that the UK is happy to renege on previous agreements. As Ed Miliband put it: “On the basis of tonight’s statement, this bill still breaks international law, reopens the Brexit debate and Labour will continue to oppose it.” Tories know that to be true: after trying to defend the bill in the upper house and coming up short when faced with Labour’s cutting Lord Falconer, advocate general Lord Keen resigned yesterday.

Boris Johnson might have prevented an embarrassing Tory rebellion in the Commons by striking a deal with Tory MPs. But the legislation being proposed still contravenes the withdrawal agreement, which could lead to trouble in the Lords – as well as abroad. Joe Biden has intervened, tweeting: “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.” Government officials may be trying to play down the significance of this development, but as Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy replied: “This shows the scale of the damage the government have done to Britain’s standing in the world. They’ve lost trust and undermined co-operation at the moment we most need it – and all to tear up an agreement they negotiated.” The whole situation is farcical.

One man who won’t be talking about Brexit despite the news, Keir Starmer, will today be making his first in-person visit to Scotland since becoming Labour leader. On the trip to Edinburgh, he will visit research facilities and discuss the latest on Covid-19, air pollution and cardiovascular health. It is part of his mission to keep talking about what UK Labour thinks the public want to hear: the fight against coronavirus and for public health. The testing system is in utter chaos, with symptomatic people having to wait longer for a test while frontline workers are prioritised. At the start of the pandemic, teething problems were understandable – but now, after a summer of opportunity?

Starmer will also be thinking about Labour’s vast and numerous electoral challenges in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon’s popularity. Boris Johnson’s unpopularity. The perception that Scottish Labour is treated “like a branch office of London”. The political narrative being dominated by a seemingly binary question, to which the party offers a nuanced answer. Recent opinion polls have suggested that independence is not a top priority at this time, but as a third party Scottish Labour struggles to get a hearing. Can Starmer’s message today, urging everyone to stop the “blame game”, cut through?