David Davis is back in Brussels for the third round of negotiations with his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, but it’s back home where the biggest Brexit moves have been played. The Labour Party is finally starting to offer a more meaningful kind of opposition to the government on Brexit.

Theresa May suffered a huge blow in June’s snap election thanks, in part, to the “revenge of the Remainers.” Neither her party nor Jeremy Corbyn’s won an overall majority, but the dominant issue of the election was in little doubt. According to the British Election Study, nearly half of all respondents cited Brexit as the biggest issue facing the country.

There was a stark partisan divide. It is true that many Labour constituencies voted Leave, but of the voters who believe that access to the Single Market should be retained, nearly 60% supported Labour in June. In a mirror contrast, of those who believe that controlling immigration is the most important priority in Brexit negotiations, about 60% voted Conservative.

On paper, the perception that Labour was the party of ‘soft’ Brexit might have been somewhat surprising. Theresa May had used her Lancaster House speech in January to signal that a ‘hard’ Brexit would be her negotiating position.

Jeremy Corbyn, however, offered little clarity as to what his party would do differently. In July he told the Andrew Marr Show that leaving the EU means leaving the Single Market – to the dismay of many colleagues who had hoped to offer a distinct Brexit policy to the Conservatives.

The reality is that just as Theresa May’s Cabinet has been divided over the summer, so too has the Labour Party been deeply split on the type of Brexit to push. It is simply because the Conservatives are in government that their divisions are more pronounced and consequential.

Despite a multitude of leaks and not-so-subtle spats between the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, and fervent Brexiteers, notably Liam Fox, the government finishes the summer with an element of coordination that it lacked at the start of it. The Chancellor appears to have won the battle to keep Britain in some sort of transitional arrangement with the EU to avoid a ‘cliff edge’ in March 2019. In a major compromise, however, he has conceded that the transition would only last until the next (scheduled) general election.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, has been waging a similar battle of his own in the Labour Party. That’s why yesterday’s call for Britain to stay in the Single Market indefinitely is a significant development.

It is not, of course, the same as saying that a post-Brexit UK should stay permanently in the Single Market, but it is certainly a move in that direction. If, for example, the European Council decides in October that insufficient progress has been made to date, possibly citing concerns over the Irish border, it would not be unthinkable for Labour to take its Single Market proposal further.

Perhaps more intriguingly, how will pro-European Conservative MPs respond? Eurosceptic MPs wreaked havoc on John Major’s premiership in the 90s. In the context of a minority government, Europhile Tory MPs like Anna Soubry have every potential to make their presence known.

Labour’s change in tone raises the pressure on the government. With all eyes on the latest round of negotiations, it is clear that the type of Brexit remains far from certain. It also raises the pressure on Jeremy Corbyn. He is yet to tweet, let alone comment, on his party’s shift in position.

For now, the direction is clear and logical. Following on from the general election, Labour is finally positioning itself as the party of a ‘soft’ Brexit.

Also published on Medium.