Owen Smith's sacking is a distraction from the wider picture – Labour could never agree to the Tory Brexit deal

If Parliament rejects the Brexit deal, what is Labour going to do? In those circumstances would we really oppose putting the deal to the electorate in a vote? I don’t think so

As leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn has the absolute right to decide who is and who is not in his Shadow Cabinet. It is also his prerogative to interpret the rules of collective responsibility as he sees fit. So there is little point quibbling over the sacking of Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Smith for saying the same thing as Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott just a few months ago – that he would like to see a referendum on the final Brexit deal – although Abbott later said her remarks in a letter to a constituent were “poorly worded”. Nor is there much to be gained by pointing out that Owen was simply reflecting Labour Party policy as agreed unanimously by our conference in 2016, as well as giving voice to the views of the overwhelming majority of Labour members and voters.

It is a pity that Owen is no longer on the front bench. He was one of the few politicians who understands that it will not be possible to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic unless the UK stays in both the customs union and the single market. But, I’m sure his successor in the job, Tony Lloyd, understands this too. As a Manchester politician and former police and crime commissioner for the city, which suffered disproportionately from IRA terror, Tony will also be acutely aware of the importance of the Good Friday Agreement and the damage that a hard border in Ireland would do to it.

Given Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are both steeped in the history and politics of Ireland, I am convinced they understand this too. Unlike some Tories, I do not believe Labour led by Jeremy Corbyn would ever sacrifice the Good Friday Agreement and the hard-won peace on the ideological altar of a hard Brexit.

That’s why Owen’s sacking, regrettable as it is, is a distraction from the big picture. Owen will continue to highlight the incompatibility of a hard Brexit and an open border, and he’ll be freer to do so from the back benches. But what ultimately matters is how Labour votes on the customs union and single market amendments coming up in Parliament in the next month or two and, most importantly of all, on the Government’s Brexit deal, if it manages to agree one.

Given the very clear tests laid down by Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, it is inconceivable that Labour could support a Tory Brexit deal, given what we know already, let alone what more will become clearer in the months to come. So, all it would need is a handful of principled Conservatives to put the interests of their constituents and their country before the short term and narrow interests of their party for the deal to be rejected.

There are only two possible scenarios for what would happen then. There would either have to be a general election, which is the less likely option, as Conservative MPs don’t want one. Or the terms of the Government’s deal would have to be put to the people in a referendum. It is, I suppose, possible before then that Theresa May concedes more than her hard line Brexiteers can bear and they move against her. But putting a Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg in her place would provoke a much bigger rebellion among moderate Conservative MPs and make a Commons defeat on the terms of the deal even more likely.

We already know that any deal the Government strikes is going to be worse than the status quo and nothing like the “sunlit uplands” promised by the Leave campaign in the referendum. If Parliament rejects the deal, what is Labour going to do? In those circumstances would we really oppose putting the deal to the electorate in a vote? I don’t think so. And that is why if you listen closely to every Labour spokesman from Jeremy Corbyn down, they are extremely careful not to rule it out.

Ironically, a public vote on the terms of the deal following a defeat in Parliament would also be in the interests of the Government and the Conservative Party. How else would Theresa May or whoever replaces her get themselves off the hook? Another general election could split the Tory Party irrevocably.

All this, along with the potential fall-out from the investigations into the Leave Campaign, Cambridge Analytica and the Kremlin, means the fight against Brexit is by no means over yet.

Ben Bradshaw is the Labour MP for Exeter and was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport between 2009 and 2010