It means:
“After months of rumours, denials of those rumours, more rumours and then an obligatory “away day”, Labour has today unveiled its new policy on Brexit.
At a speech in Coventry (which backed Brexit by 55 per cent to 45 per cent) Jeremy Corbyn will announce his party’s support of “a” customs union with the European Union after Brexit.
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On one level the move is smart politics: it puts clear water between Labour and the government and allows the party to side with Tory rebels when the issue comes to a vote in parliament later next year.
With about a dozen or more Conservatives almost certain to vote against the government on its customs union policy, there is a clear prospect of defeat for Theresa May.
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In such circumstances a snap general election cannot be ruled out, giving Mr Corbyn a realistic chance of achieving his ultimate aim of forming a government and delivering a Labour Brexit.
But looking carefully at Mr Corbyn’s speech it is clear that even if he was in power his objectives for a new type of relationship with the EU would be as difficult to negotiate as those of the Conservative government.
Labour, to use the well-worn cliché, wants to eat its cake and eat it as much as the Tory Brexiteers. It’s just different cake.
Mr Corbyn said that Labour would seek protections, clarifications or exemptions in relation to privatisation and public service competition directives, state aid and procurement rules.
He wants to be inside a customs union with close alignment and privileged access to the single market. Yet he implies that he doesn’t want to pay into the EU budget for this privilege. In fact, he suggests in the speech that he can negotiate a deal that returns £8 billion a year of Brexit savings into jobs and public services.
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Such a deal is as unrealistic as the kind of relationship the Tory right expect to be able to achieve. A future Labour government cannot simply arrive in Brussels and say, “We’re not the nasty Tories so give us everything you wouldn’t give them”.
But ultimately, like so much of Labour policy, this new position is not about what a Corbyn government would actually do in power. Rather it is about building an electoral coalition to achieve something that before the EU referendum would have been unthinkable: putting Jeremy Corbyn in government.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/labour-lays-out-its-brexit-cake-strategy-0rxvlg2pn
Also:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43189878
&
https://uk.reuters.com/article/britain-eu-labour-trade/uk-must-be-able-to-influence-eu-trade-deals-after-brexit-corbyn-idUKL9N1MY00X
Quite a lot of cake there I’m afraid..
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