| At last, Theresa May is going, her deal is dead and the stalling-for-time talks with Labour are over. It's like a sink being unblocked. One upshot of all this is that it makes Labour's position clearer. There is no possibility of an acceptable deal (in my view there never was), so whatever May's successor comes up with must now be put to a public vote. It is not a secret that most Labour members and MPs have been pressing for the Party taking a more robust line on supporting a second vote on EU membership, with the objective of defeating any deal on offer and staying in the EU. In the absence of this, some Labour voters thought they should lend their European Election vote to one of the smaller parties that are more brazenly pro-Remain in their campaigning, either to encourage Labour to follow suit or to be certain they are registering a vote for Remain on 23 May. I think that is a wrong analysis but also a dangerous one which if acted upon could give the far right its biggest electoral win in post-war politics. Firstly, Labour is an overwhelmingly Remain party, especially in London where most people reading this will be casting their vote. Secondly, by squabbling over and fracturing the Remain vote the minor parties are giving the advantage to Farage's vehicle, the Brexit Party. And thirdly, painting Labour as equivocal about or even pro-Brexit will minimise the Remain share when the votes come to be counted. Labour accepts the plethora of independent and government studies that show any version of Brexit leaves the country worse off. We have also, rightly in my view – and I voted against triggering Article 50 – said the Referendum result should be respected unless and until it is revised by another popular vote. If in theory there could be a deal the Party would support, in practice that is not going to happen: both because the talks with the Tories have collapsed and because a majority of Labour MPs are resolved to vote against any deal that is not subject to a popular vote. The reality is that it is Labour doing the heavy lifting on defeating Brexit. Had Mrs May and all but a handful of Tory MPs got their way we would have left the EU two months ago. But over 200 Labour MPs have consistently and repeatedly voted for a second ballot and against leaving the EU with May's deal. Yes, we have been joined by about 60 minor party MPs, but the strategy that has kept the hope of Remain alive came from Keir Starmer's team not the depleted ranks of the Lib Dems or SNP who cannot get all their MPs to vote for a People's Vote despite their self-righteousness on the subject. Many voters I have spoken to mistakenly believe that they can vote for any Remain party with equal effect as these elections are run on a proportional system. That is not so however as set out in this explainer. Parties getting a high share of the vote are rewarded with more seats than their percentage alone justifies. Farage, attracting votes from the implosion of UKIP and the Conservatives (who are below 10% in some polls) will be the main beneficiary of this. In London, the Brexit Party is on 20%, only 4% behind Labour. Votes slipping to other Remain parties may not translate into seats for them but will bolster the Brexit Party. Voters should be moving to Labour from the minor parties, not the other way. This week the European Movement held a hustings in Hammersmith. Labour was represented by the excellent Seb Dance MEP. Seb, like almost every Labour candidate in this election, MP, councillor, and party member is a passionate pro-European. Our Council was the first to back a People's Vote. Too much attention is given to the handful of pro-Brexit Labour MPs which gives a distorted picture of where the Party sits. As does the media obsession with the half dozen Tory supporters of a People's Vote – if there were 60 rather than six of them we would be having that Vote by now. Sending Labour MEPs to Brussels means progressive centre-left parties in the Socialists and Democrats group can be the biggest party, elected on a platform to end austerity and tackle climate change. This is the only way to stop the populist right gaining the upper hand in the Parliament and our country being represented in Europe by Farage's far right extreme nationalists. Farage praises Putin but scorns the NHS, would relax gun controls but is unrelaxed when he hears a foreign language spoken on a train. Despite the buffoonery, his is a well-funded and organised campaign. It can be stopped but only if everyone who fears and loathes what Farage represents uses their vote most effectively. And that is best achieved by a cross next to the Labour Party.
Brexit latest Theresa May's deal now looks certain to be defeated for a fourth time if put to a vote in the first week of June. Unless, that is, it is made subject to a confirmatory vote – ie a referendum in which the question is do you want to go through with Brexit on May's terms or would you rather stay in the EU? Instead of making progress we have six weeks of talks that went nowhere, Euro Elections that no one had prepared for, half the Cabinet plotting to become the next Prime Minister and a series of minor and new parties all scrabbling for attention and survival. Truly it is not politics' finest hour. We now know Theresa May will be gone in June or July and we will have a new Prime Minister, almost certainly a hard Brexiter who will want to cut our close relationship with Europe, meaning no customs union, no single market and no freedom of movement. That at least makes the choice simple. The Brexiters' best argument seems to be 'let's just get on with it', that is, break the deadlock by leaving and then sort out what happens next. But almost every piece of authoritative and impartial evidence in the last three years has shown the country will be worse off with any form of Brexit economically, politically and in terms of our future on the world stage. That may be why every poll now shows a significant advantage to Remain. The Remain view, which I share, is that it is reasonable on a decision of this magnitude and with so much having come to light in the past three years to check that people still want to leave the EU once we know what the deal means. Let's hope, whoever is Prime Minister in three months' time, we can bring finality to this issue which is crippling government and, combined with almost ten years of austerity, leaving our public services and those who rely on them in a parlous state
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