The major parties are desperate to avoid 2024 being a Brexit election

Governments seeking re-election normally trumpet their successes in delivering their promises. The logic of the 2019 “Get Brexit Done” election was that the battle cry in 2024 should be “Got Brexit Done”.  

The fact it is not, even though it is led by a prime minister who described himself as “the original Brexiteer” and a cabinet drawn predominantly from the Leave side of the campaign, speaks volumes about where they think Brexit has got to.  

Remainers have not seen anything to convince themselves that they were wrong to think Brexit was a mistake. But Boris Johnson’s success in 2019 was based on becoming the party of Leave – helped by the decision of the then Brexit party not to contest Conservative seats. Rishi Sunak's problem now is that few of those Leave voters seem to think the government has done Brexit well. There are only crumbs to offer an awkward coalition of libertarians who want a radically smaller state, large scale deregulation, and buccaneering in a free trading world – a couple of trade deals with Australia and New Zealand (not the prize of a US deal, which Johnson's former communications director Lee Cain told us Liz Truss wanted to make the rallying cry in the 2019 election) and patchy divergence from EU regulation. For them there is a promise of more Brexit opportunities to be seized – but concrete ideas are few.

Nor is there much to show for the Brexit voters who wanted to gain control of the borders. Legal migration has soared and small boats start are arriving, with the Conservatives promising this cohort of voters that a return to government would mean finally getting on with the hoped-for deterrent of Rwanda deportations and reducing the annual legal cap on visa issuance.  

Labour is keen to play down its position on Brexit

That might appear an opportunity for Labour to differentiate itself on Brexit, but Keir Starmer is still battling to overturn the impression from his time as Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary that he was keen to reverse the referendum result, alienating those who voted Leave.  

So the Labour offer is “to make Brexit work” – in contrast to Boris Johnson’s “botched Brexit deal”. But the institutional route that used to be on offer – through membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union, is ruled out, as is a return to free movement.  

The Labour manifesto mentions closer security cooperation as well as cooperation on unauthorised migration, but it is very light on any detail of what that new deal might look like – it was left to Rachel Reeves to go further in an interview in the Financial Times by setting out more concrete ideas for a veterinary deal and other possible sectoral deals. Whether there is any appetite for such deals in the EU – and what concessions on, for example fisheries, the EU might demand in return remain hypothetical for now.  

The smaller parties are much more upfront on their ambitions for Brexit

All other parties are critical of the Brexit status quo. Reform claims it would do what the government has failed to – seize the opportunities of Brexit by scrapping all remaining EU law and the Windsor framework. Of course, Reform will not have to deal with the consequences of either move since they admit they will not form the next government. But that outflanking of the Conservatives with promises of an ever harder (or purer) Brexit has the potential to act as a siren to some candidates in the upcoming battle for the future direction of the Conservatives if they lose – especially if they see a haemorrhaging of support to Reform.  

But more relevant to Labour may be the appeal – not least to many of its members and newly elected MPs – of the positions of the other smaller parties. All want to see a much closer relationship with the EU – re-joining the Single Market  or the EU, as the UK or in the case of the SNP as an independent Scotland. The manifestos of the two nationalist parties focus on the damage done to the Scottish and Welsh economies of Brexit (notwithstanding the Welsh majority for Leave). The Liberal Democrats set out page after page of areas where they want to see more cooperation with the EU, and then see that improved relationship paving the way for the UK to re-join the Single Market, with EU membership possible in the longer-term.  

The place where Brexit remains a key battleground is – unsurprisingly – Northern Ireland.  

Sinn Fein proclaims success in reducing the damage from Brexit, with unity in Ireland as the path to “resume” full membership of the EU. On the unionist side there is a spectrum of views. The DUP trumpet their successes in safeguarding the Union – but promise to continue to fight against the application of EU laws and the border in the Irish Sea, while the TUV make scrapping the Windsor Framework the centrepiece of their campaign. The UUP – not represented in recent UK parliaments – focuses instead on what the UK can do to make the border less visible through deals with the EU. The cross-community Alliance party calls for “repairing” the UK-EU relationship, starting with a veterinary deal.

Parliament may change from a forum for Brexiters to a pressure point for a closer relationship

In the 2019-24 parliament all the running was made by Brexit supporters, bemoaning any compromise by government and pressing for harder Brexit. If the polls are anywhere near right, that will be a hugely diminished force after July 4th. In place a possible Labour government would face an array of opposition forces decrying it for failing to pursue a closer relationship that they will argue is a lever that Labour could pull to deliver its growth mission. How Labour responds could be one of the defining decisions of the next parliament.