Why is Labour so shy about being pro-European?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/02/labour-shy-pro-european-labour-against-brexit

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One week ago, I wrote an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn opposing his stance on Brexit. Along with my recently-formed campaign team at Labour Against Brexit, I invited fellow Labour party members to sign it. In just 72 hours, we received 5,000 signatures. Writing it was the culmination of years of frustration about the lack of passion for Europe that my party (of which I have been a member for 17 years, since I was 18) has shown to the electorate.

It has always been obvious to me, as it is to the majority of Labour party members and supporters, that you cannot be internationalist, forward-thinking and progressive without also being ardently pro-EU. However, although the official policy of the Labour party has long been to support EU membership, the way we have campaigned has not reflected this. Labour has been, and still is, pro-European but shy about it. That’s why a week before the referendum half of Labour voters did not know that we were campaigning for remain. And it is why so many people are confused about our position now.

When I became a candidate in the 2009 European elections, I relished the opportunity to go out and tell my fellow citizens about all the great things that their elected Labour MEPs were doing for them – improving employment rights, environmental protections and consumer protections to mention just a few. Yet I was advised to “stick to local issues” on the doorsteps or at street stalls. “Don’t mention the EU” seemed to be the mantra.

Seven years later, keen to be involved in fighting the EU referendum campaign, I became my constituency Labour party’s referendum officer. I visited local branches to talk about the campaign and it quickly became clear that even many of our politically-engaged party members had very little clue what precisely we got out of EU membership, demonstrating how little the party had spoken about it over the years. But this hurdle was easily overcome by giving members some information, and the majority were enthusiastic to be involved.

However, there was a bigger hurdle. We had local elections in May and the advice from somewhere (who?) was that it was best not to mention the referendum on the doorstep until after we had safely won those seats. We could not risk being too pro-remain for fear of losing votes. Once again, it was “don’t mention the EU”. We then had six weeks left to campaign for remain. Take this same reluctance by Labour to properly campaign until the very last minute across the whole country, and add the fact that we had spent years being too nervous to stand up for our pro-European beliefs, and you get a hint as to why leave won.

Seven months on and we are still taking a position that our leadership feel will be the best for us electorally, rather than standing up for what, as a party, we actually believe in. It is becoming increasingly popular to blame Corbyn for the position Labour is currently taking. I’m no Corbynista but his support for Brexit is simply continuing the “shy European” campaign strategy that the Labour party has been following for 30 years. It is based on the belief that, if we come across as too pro-European, we will lose votes to Ukip and the Tories. It’s still happening – I know of at least one local council candidate who has been told not to come out too strongly against Brexit, and that’s in a Lib Dem seat.

Of course, this appeasement strategy is flawed, and it always has been. The way to win hearts and minds over any issue is to have strength and belief in your convictions. In the same way that Labour has never convinced anyone in the past that we are blasé about Europe, we are not convincing anyone right now that we are happy to accept the “will of the people”. Instead, we are losing support to parties that are more passionately remain or leave. It is destroying my party.

The way to win hearts and minds over any issue is to have strength and belief in your convictions

If ever there were a time for the Labour party to finally stand up and say what we truly believe in when it comes to Europe, now is that time. That is why, just 18 days ago, we started Labour Against Brexit. I suspected that I was not the only Labour party member who felt as I do, and I was proved right. The Facebook group and page, which started as a sanctuary for Labour remainers, quickly became a campaign body with an increasingly large support base.

I wrote the letter not just in the hope that Corbyn would see it and change his mind; it was also so that everyone could see what the grassroots membership of the party believes. And I needed to remember why I was here and that others were with me.

It is quite clear, from polls and from our campaign, that members from across the “broad church” that is our party do not support the leadership’s position. Labour Against Brexit is dismayed by yesterday’s result in parliament, and at the imposition of the three-line whip. But we want to thank the 47 brave Labour MPs who voted in the nation’s best interests by voting against the triggering of article 50. All of our efforts will now go towards persuading our MPs and peers to vote against the bill in its subsequent stages, in the knowledge that they have both the membership and true Labour values behind them.