When the UK leaves the EU this Friday, 31 January 2020, after 47 years of membership, it will be a sombre day for many of us. For others, it will be a day of celebration. For most people, I suspect they will simply hope we can now move on from talking about Brexit at the expense of everything else.
As someone who campaigned with all my heart to stay in the EU, and as the first person on Labour’s front bench to publicly call for a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal, I am desperately sad to see us leaving our friends and allies in Europe. But we are leaving. The disastrous result of the General Election has settled that. This is no longer an argument about Leave or Remain, it’s about what kind of future we want for our country and for our children.
That’s where the new fight begins. Boris Johnson wants to pretend he’s now “Got Brexit Done”, and we no longer need to worry about the details. He wants us to simply trust him to sort it all out. Well, I don’t trust him. Neither should you. He talks about “Global Britain” whilst turning his back on vulnerable child refugees. He talks about “Taking Back Control” while reducing parliament’s ability to scrutinise his decisions. He talks about attracting “Global Talent” to the UK while creating huge distress and uncertainty for EU citizens, many of whom have been here for years and who have made their lives in this country.
The fight for our internationalist values starts now. It will be long, and it will be difficult, because Boris Johnson has a large majority – but that’s why it’s so important. When it feels like hope is lost, that’s when those of us who believe in progressive values and internationalism need to stand up and fight. If we don’t, no-one else is going to do it for us.
We need to stand up and fight for our hard-won workers’ rights. We need to stand up and fight for our environmental protections. Most importantly, we need to stand up and fight for the rights of EU citizens living in this country. They are our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues, our family. I work side-by-side with many of them in the NHS, when I work shifts as a doctor in my local A&E department. Under the draconian new immigration laws being bandied around by this government, my own Polish mother might not have been able to move to this country and make a life for herself.
Although the Labour party is in a difficult place right now, we must make sure it is at the forefront of the fightback. That’s one of the main reasons I am running to become the next Deputy Leader. We have huge organisational strength through our membership, through our links with the trade unions and through our MPs and councillors embedded in their local communities. Now is the time to deploy those strengths to maximum effect, to hold the Government to account and ensure that we fight back against every attempt to undercut our rights and freedoms at work, every attempt to weaken our environmental safeguards, every attempt to inject privatisation into our National Health Service.
The slogan “Get Brexit Done” might have helped win the election for Boris Johnson, but for those of us who stand against his destructive vision for the future of our country, this fight isn’t done. It’s just getting started.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan is MP for Tooting and candidate for deputy leader of the Labour party.