Will mounting pressure over an EU referendum cause Labour to implode?
Anna Sonny, 20 February 2015
An exchange between Ed Miliband and an electrician yesterday raised some important questions for the Labour leader over his stance on holding an EU referendum in Britain.
Peter Baldwin, an aircraft electrician at BAE Systems in Lancashire said that he didn’t feel like voting for Labour because the party are not holding a referendum on the UK’s EU membership and also warned of voters leaning towards Ukip. As the most recent by-elections in the UK have shown, Ukip are not just plucking votes away from the Tories; in October’s Heywood and Middleton by-election Labour just scraped a win, beating Ukip by 617 votes.
Labour’s performance in Rochester and Strood last November was also tarnished by a tweet from former MP Emily Thornberry, a photo of white van outside a house with three England flags flying, which was denounced as snobby. Baldwin’s reference to ‘the working class man in here’ wanting a say is reminiscent of this concern over Labour being out of touch with its working class voters.
When Ed tried to explain his policy on squeezing benefits for immigrants, Baldwin wasn’t entirely convinced: ‘But there’s too many people here. That’s why we’ve got all these people out of work. There’s too many people here.’
Baldwin seems to suggest that it’s already too late to fix the impact of immigration on jobs in his hometown; he is more concerned that people who feel disenfranchised by Labour should get to vote on an issue on which they feel they haven’t had a say.
And it’s not just voters that Labour is losing on this issue; this week former National Executive Chair Harriet Yeo quit the party and joined Ukip, over Labour’s decision not to hold an EU referendum.
Pressure is also coming from Labour’s biggest donor, John Mills, to put our EU membership to the democratic vote.
Europe has already split the Conservatives; will this mounting pressure coming from within over this issue also cause the Labour party to implode?
David Cameron has announced a referendum but as Ed Miliband pointed out this week, hasn’t given a clear idea of which way he would campaign, nor has he outlined a plan for renegotiating reforms; on the other hand Ed Miliband’s stance is clear, but he doesn’t seem willing to put the issue to a democratic vote.
Perhaps he senses the mood in Britain is quite anti-EU and that a referendum would lead to an exit; perhaps he has no confidence that his campaign to stay in could convince the British public. Or maybe he is anxious about the uncertainty the possibility of a referendum is already creating.
Either way, both Labour and the Tories are failing to temper the British public’s uncertainty surrounding the EU. Ukip voters are by default voting to leave the EU – at least their stance is clear.
The Tories and Labour both need to not only find their ground and stand on it, but give some clear reasons for doing so.
There is also the SNP/Plaid Cymru dimension to the Labour and the EU question if Miliband becomes PM of a coalition including the SNP, Plaid and the LibDems. Not only would his coalition partners not want an EU referendum if Miliband tried to force one upon them he would run into the SNP and Plaid stated policy that if Scotland or Wales voted to stay in the EU but England voted to leave Wales and Scotland should have an effective veto over the UK leaving the EU. All very messy. .
More broadly, such a coalition could end Labour’s position as a major party. The temptation for Miliband to make a coalition with the SNP is great, but it would almost certainly deal the Labour a mortal blow and finish it as a contention to hold sole power within two Parliaments . That is because Miliband would not only have to deny England English votes for English laws, but would be forced as a condition for SNP support to give more and more powers to all the devolved assemblies because it would be politically impossible to deny the Welsh and Northern Irish extra powers if Scotland gets more. Such a coalition might also end up increasing the gap between the Treasury pro-rata funding of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the much lower figure in England.
As a consequence Labour would rapidly be seen by the English as an anti-English party, while the Tories would be forced to make a choice between tolerating the injustice of the situation on the spurious grounds that they did not want to have second class MPs in the Commons (English MPs already are second class MPs because of the devolved assemblies) and becoming the Party of and for England. In view of the growing English anger and the seeming impossibility of ever regaining sufficient representation in Scotland and Wales to be again a serious force there, the likelihood is that the Tories would become the de facto Party for England, even if they probably would not openly embrace the title.
In such a situation the Labour would find their vote in England diminishing. At the General Election after the 2015 they would probably suffer significant losses in England. At the same time they would not get any credit in Scotland and Wales for giving more devolved powers to those home countries. Rather, the message to Scots and Welsh electors would be elect even more SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs and you will get further favours from the Westminster Government because there will be more nationalist MPs to influence Westminster Governments either by selling their support for a coalition with Labour or to deny the Tories office. SNP support will be made even firmer and Labour support in Wales is likely to suffer the fate the same fate as it has in Scotland and move en masse to the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru.
This would leave Labour almost entirely dependent on England for its representation, an England which they would be incensing throughout their period of coalition government by refusing English vote for English laws and pandering to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The probable consequence of that would be much diminished Labour support in England at the General Election after the one in 2015 (2020 unless the fixed term for parliaments is abolished) . That is likely to be the end of Labour as a major party because the total Commons seats outside England are only 117. Even if all were willing to support a coalition government to keep the Tories out of office (a wildly improbable proposition), Labour would need around 233 English seats to give such a coalition a working majority and 209 seats for a majority of one. A Labour Party which had greatly antagonised the English, as a coalition dependent on non-English seat MPs would inevitably do, is unlikely to be able to muster anywhere near 200 English seats let alone enough for a working majority (In the 2010 election Labour only managed 191 English seats).
Read more at
https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/why-a-laboursnp-coalition-could-spell-the-end-of-labour-as-a-major-party/