Kezia Dugdale: Walkout should be Brexit wake-up call

I was but a toddler when a group of Labour MPs broke away in the early 1980s to form the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Naturally, I was more interested in cartoons than breaking political stories, but I’ve read enough history books and Labour biography’s to know that the band of breakaways had, let’s say, mixed reviews.

The Gang of Four  from left, Dr David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins  who broke away from Labour to form the SDP in the early 1980s in protest at the partys shift to the left. Picture: PA

Polling reports show that at one point, the SDP commanded a 56 per cent share of the popular vote, but that had collapsed by the 1987 general election, when the party’s polling support fell to just 23 per cent. Roughly where Scottish Labour stands today, incidentally.

That breakaway started with the Gang of Four and ended with 29 MPs in total defecting. 28 of them Labour. Today 7 Labour MPs are walking away from the party with more tipped to follow suit.

Whilst the Gang of Four left largely in protest at the Labour Party shifting to the left, this no doubt ranks in the Top 10, but not Top 3, reasons for this crop of MPs resigning their party whip. Brexit smashes home in the top spot, with all of them furious at the damage Brexit is set to cause in their constituencies and equally angry that the party they’ve devoted their working lives to seems determined to do as little as possible to stop it.

Call me old fashioned, call me what you like, but I don’t think “sorry, we were just preserving the democratic mandate” washes for an excuse when thousands have lost their jobs in ­manufacturing plants across the country over the past few weeks and thousands more brace themselves for the guaranteed economic uncertainty that lies ahead.

The Labour Party I know ­literally marched for jobs and employment rights; now it sits back as they walk out of the country in favour of other countries free of future trading barriers.

The world of Labour activists and members will split into two camps over this defection. There will be a loud braying mob who will denounce them as traitors. They’ll suggest that they’ve just made Labour’s job of winning a general election all the harder, as if its position on Brexit wasn’t delivering beyond expectation on that front anyway. The individuals will be called selfish and egotistical. Others, like me, will just feel sad. Sad that a once broad church has so much zeal for its current doctrine that dissenters are no longer welcome.

It’s amazing that Labour has held it together for so long, and the credit for that goes to Keir Starmer for his masterful six-test strategy and even more recently, the conference motion which kept a People’s Vote on the table. I mean, it’s on the table like a warm bottle of almost empty mayonnaise is in a greasy spoon, but it’s still there.Being “on the table” isn’t enough for me. Knowing that May’s deal is going to be catastrophic for the country and no deal even worse, it should be the stand out chef’s special.

Both May’s deal and no deal have been rejected by Parliament, but we’re supposed to ignore the calls for a People’s Vote because there’s apparently no parliamentary majority for it? That’s illogical, but like so much of this debate, the facts no longer matter.

Despite all this negativity, I’ve never been more hopeful about a People’s Vote than I am today. As all other options fall away, and Article 50 is extended, as it will have to be, giving the people a final say is the only way to sort out this sorry mess.

I’ve long argued for a ratifying ­referendum. A simple choice between the deal the UK Government has negotiated on our behalf with the EU27 and choosing to stay. I know what I’d choose, and the polls and research shows that the vast majority of Scots agree. What’s more, crucially, so do the majority of people across the UK. Keep the heid, a final say could still be on its way.