Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
How should the left and the labour movement respond to the Brexit deal?
As the false polarisations that have divided working people over the past decade subside, the class politics of both the EU and Johnson are there for all to see, writes JOHN FOSTER
TORY DEAL: Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen

THE first thing to say about the UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement with the EU is that it was a treaty negotiated by a Conservative government — not a Labour government. Certainly not by a progressive Labour government.  

But a Conservative government dominated by neoliberal, free-market objectives and ambitions, particularly those of banking and finance.

To emphasise this point further, it is worth considering how a progressive Labour government might have tackled the negotiations — as, for instance, one elected on the basis of Labour’s most recent (2019) election programme.  

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
David Robinson, photo supplied by family
Features / 21 July 2025
21 July 2025

Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER

Alex Salmond speaks at the SNP conference in Glasgow, Octobe
Features / 17 October 2024
17 October 2024
JOHN FOSTER examines how the late SNP leader shifted the party leftwards and upwards, bringing Scottish independence to the forefront while fundamentally failing to address deeper issues of class and corporate capture
Features / 2 December 2023
2 December 2023
Ahead of a TUC special Congress next weekend to fight Conservative anti-strike laws, JOHN FOSTER looks back to 1969 and 1972 when similar proposals were defeated through class solidarity and painstaking organising work
Jeremy Corbyn with Neil Findlay MSP during a rally at Glasgo
Book Review / 13 August 2023
13 August 2023
JOHN FOSTER recommends the down-to-earth realism of a political memoir that navigates the surreality of Scottish politics
Similar stories
Junior doctors on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, London, during their continuing dispute over pay. Picture date: Thursday June 27, 2024
Workers' Rights / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR

France's President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he delivers a
Features / 10 October 2024
10 October 2024
The French president and the European Central Bank have identified ‘more of the same’ neoliberal agenda as the answer to the EU’s woes – but can post-Brexit Britain grasp the opportunity to reject continued austerity, asks NICK WRIGHT
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage smoking outside the Westminste
Features / 12 September 2024
12 September 2024
As angry voters reject austerity, social insecurity and endless war across Europe, the left should be the beneficiary instead of the far right. NICK WRIGHT looks at the ideological hangups holding us back from connecting to these dissenters
TUC 2024 / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
GAWAIN LITTLE urges the labour movement to seize a historic opportunity under the new government, warning that failure to push for real change now could spell disaster for workers and fuel the far-right threat