Would a Labour pledge to rejoin the EU win votes?

[CoraLdn]

I’m not a fan of his, but heard Sadiq Khan say today that Labour should commit to rejoining the EU in their manifesto before the next general election. I must say that given the decline of this country post Brexit, I would vote for them just for this one reason.

on the other hand, people still vote for Reform despite a huge part of the economic and cost of living crisis being due to Brexit which was missold to them by Farage.

can’t reconcile this!

Girl no 😄

(From a hard remainer)

Your poll and thread title are different though - yes, I want to rejoin the EU; no, I'm not sure this would be a vote winner at all.

Decline is this country is more to do with are own politicians than Brexit, the cost of living crisis was due more to Covid, war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East and the scramble for Net Zero, after all we only produce less than 2% of the world’s emissions

Prior to the 2019 general election, Labour stated they would have a second referendum with option to remain included. They got their worst result in 84 years.

Wind forward to the 2024 general election, Labour manifesto included:

No tax rises. I voted for this.

Smash the traffic gangs to reduce illegal immigration. I voted for this.

No return to, customs union or single market or freedom of movement. I voted for this.

The outcome was they doubled their number of seats compared to 2019.

Labour has failed to smash the gangs, raised taxes in two consecutive budgets. So, any attempt to rejoin the EU would prove that Labour manifesto of 2024 was all a lie.

Little wonder what happened last week.

So we cause 2% of the worlds emissions but less than 1% of the worlds population lives in the UK.

Based on the fact that it would be highly unlikely the UK could rejoin and get to keep GBP this time round, I’d say no. Once people even mildly for it realised it would mean also joining the Euro, I think support would fall away sharply.

Other reasons not to join the EU could be:

UK would be subject to the 15% US that were imposed upon the EU.

EU has a bigger immigration problem than the UK.

If Brexit was responsible for our decline what has been responsible for France's and Germany's, which are worse than ours?

Not yet but I think a policy to try to rejoin the single market would be a vote winner. It would certainly regain my vote.

Starmer has tried to court the votes of the right wing and the Brexiteers and got nowhere. It's time for Labour to try something else, something they actually believe in.

@Erin1975

Starmer’s manifesto stated the UK would not return to:

Customs union
Single market
Freedom of movement

They were several of the reasons I voted Labour for the first time in 27 years. Other reasons included:

No increases to taxes. Didn’t happen as taxes have increased in the last two budgets.

Smash the gangs who traffic illegals. This has not happened, but I don’t blame Labour for the increased numbers of people arriving in the EU which is the cause of the increased numbers who arrive in Calais.

The issue that politicians fail to understand is that those that swung the Brexit vote to leave were not just the old, but also the primarily young-ish, white voters in what used to be called the red wall constituencies. And they voted leave because they had not seen any tangible benefits from being in the EU. Indeed they had seen the entirely legal migration of manual workers keep their wages and working conditions low, while not being able to enjoy the travel, education, freedom of movement benefits that the middle class enjoyed.

This is a particular problem for Labour, as historically what has propelled them to power is the votes of those people, and the inconvenient truth is that because the Labour party has either ignored their issues, or actively made them worse, the Labour party is no longer the party of the working class. It's the party mainly for the metropolitan public sector workers. But without the actual working class, there are insufficient votes to get them into power in a sustainable way. The Conservatives lost the last election, Labour did not win it.

So, being in the EU has many many benefits, and I am very much in favour of the UK being in. Indeed, I live there. But a pledge to re-join the EU is not going to win the votes of those that Labour need to keep it in power I don't think. They want to have secure jobs, in an economy that's growing, and to feel better off. They will not see that the EU brings that, because at a micro level, for them in the short to medium term it will not. Indeed, post Brexit and the exodus of EU workers they saw real wages increase above the minimum wage.

I wish we hadn’t left the EU ( it affected me very personally) but we couldn’t go back in at this point. The divorce was and is a massive undertaking and took vast amounts of resources and money. Maybe in 20 years but not now.

When I emigrated to the Netherlands in 2001, it was partly because I needed a job. Whilst there I met other young Brits (and many other Europeans) who were working in factories, warehouses, hospitality and other low-paid jobs. The idea that you needed to be middle-class to take part in freedom of movement is not correct.

I considered studying at a Dutch university as some courses were taught in English, yet back then, tuition was free for Brits. I wish I'd gone for it before it was too late!

The problem is that rejoining EU wasn't in their manifesto and they haven't made it a priority so far, so it would seem like a cynical move to suddenly introduce it as a policy now that they're unpopular.

I agree with this post. There’s a significant failure from politicians of all stripes to see the impact on the actual working class people. They’re not going to bothered about Erasmus as no-one they know would ever benefit from it.

Yes but I dont think its that easy to rejoin unfortunately

That’s true. I worked in Spain and Netherlands and had lots of friends who went to other EU countries. My husband who is from an EU country did the same- worked all over Europe before washing up here 20 years ago!

Hence I know lots of late 40somethings who speak Italian, French, Spanish, German. Just normal people, most of whom were from very ordinary families.
The idea was that young people would move around, learn each other’s languages and culture ( which was mostly clubbing lol) Happy days.

so it’s ok to cripple us financially to achieve nothing, other nation are still increasing there emissions, so we are achieving nothing except having the highest energy prices that affects business and household also adding to the cost of living

This

Look at it from the EU's perspective. The UK left less than 10 years go. If the Labour Party won a GE off the back of a proposal to rejoin, the EU will look at the fact that both Reform, and the Tory Party, who could well end up in Government within 5 years of any Labour win, are rammed full of dribbling euro-hating loons who would do their level best to just leave yet again.

The UK is not rejoining the EU until such time its the overwhelming and prevalent preference of just about everyone because the EU won't countenance the UK bouncing in and out every 5-10 years.

But would they have been better off by taking a warehouse job in the EU vs one in the UK? Almost certainly not. They had, or could get, jobs. So I stand by my point that for many jobs freedom of movement and the mass legal migration into the UK depressed real wages for the low paid. Blair and Brown recognised the impact of that, and rolled out Universal Credit to effectively subsidise low paid jobs and therefore, indirectly, employers. But, those that were young and single did not benefit much from that subsidy, as it targeted families. So it is no surprise that those are now the most disillusioned voters, IMO

No working class person would ever benefit from a programme which provides grant funding for educational and training opportunities abroad? OK, then.

I didn't have a job in the UK at the time. A young British guy I knew left his job in the Netherlands after a few weeks and went back home because he missed his family. He then tried to claim Jobseekers Allowance. One of his British flatmates in the Netherlands was so annoyed with him for doing this, that he told the UK Job Centre that he had a job which he'd walked away from voluntarily.

You're only seeing freedom of movement from one angle.

No one is saying none of them benefitted. Of course some were able to take advantage. But you are looking at it through too narrow a lens. Far more people felt that they had their wages depressed than were able to take advantage of the ability to move freely. And that's easy to verify by looking at how many Southern, then latterly Eastern Europeans came into a agriculture, horticulture, warehousing, logistics and manufacturing than left the UK to seek employment elsewhere in Europe. Most of those that left the UK went to Spain and Portugal, and were retired, not actively seeking employment or working. And that is why the previously red wall crumbled, and why it has not been rebuilt, certainly not with any firm foundations.

I'm not looking at it through a narrow lens. The fact that people from impoverished areas of Eastern Europe were able to live and work abroad should prove once and for all that freedom of movement wasn't just an opportunity for the middle classes.

I know some people felt that their wages were depressed by freedom of movement. It's not that simple though, as these immigrant workers generally contributed to the economy and being predominantly young adults, they required proportionately less of the health and education spending than the ageing native UK population. Tens of thousands also ended up supporting the NHS by working in it!

Some migrant workers also filled vacancies which employers had found impossible to fill locally, especially in agriculture and hospitality. And a minority started businesses which employed Brits - I was interviewed for a job by a young Romanian who'd started his own franchise.

I got my first job in the Netherlands because at the time, the company was actively recruiting in the UK, having failed to fill their vacancies locally. The owner said that unemployment was low in the Netherlands and employment benefits were generous, "so basically, everyone who wants a job has got one".

I agree that perception is a problem, fuelled by relentless propaganda from the right-wing press. I'm sure that the vote to leave the EU was a triumph of emotion over logic. I remember a Leave campaigner admitting after the referendum that lies were told "to get Brexit over the line".