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Morning,
Labour’s greatest risk at the moment is irrelevancy.
Voters - and the media - give less attention to a party which they believe has no chance of forming a government.
There is a Catch 22 situation here.
Labour cannot get traction unless it gets more coverage for its policies but it cannot get coverage for its policies until it starts to perform better in the polls.
In the last government, Ed Miliband struggled to get airtime as the dynamics between the Tories and the Lib Dems were regarded as more interesting.
A similar pattern is developing in this Parliament with the Conservative ructions over Brexit drawing the oxygen away from other political narratives.
This is not to say Labour cannot have an important role in the EU debate.
John McDonnell will make that point today when he gives a speech setting out Labour’s stance on the Brexit negotiations.
The Shadow Chancellor is keen to push the idea that Theresa May is plotting a “bankers’ Brexit” that will see the Tories, in a rush to strike any form of trade deal, sacrifice workers’ rights and give special privileges to City firms and rapacious corporates.
He also raises the spectre of the UK signing up to a TTIP-style agreement that will open the door to further privatisation and leave the British government at the mercy of litigious multinational companies.
Some of this is red meat for the Labour faithful but McDonnell is right to set down markers for the Tories.
Many of the Brexiteers are free-market ideologues who want to see the UK move from the European model which balances free enterprise with an interventionist state to a US-style, low regulation small state.
You might even suggest they used the EU referendum as a vehicle for achieving this goal. There is little action in Parliament today beyond the usual Business Questions.
Though the monthly questions on Women and Equalities is always worth keeping an eye out for.
The Speaker may also be asked to grant an urgent question on Russia and the Nato operations in Estonia.
There are also two reports out today which are a reminder that we should not allow the fog of Brexit to mask the deep social problems that have developed under the Tories.
A study by Unison reveals the hardship caused by freeze in public sector pay. A separate study by Oxford University finds what we had long suspected that half of welfare claimants hit with benefit sanctions have to use food banks to feed themselves. If you want to get in touch my email is jason.beattie@mirror.co.uk and you can follow us @mirrorpolitics on Twitter.
Thanks,
Mirror Politics | 
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