Many pro-Europeans criticise the Labour leader for wanting to be neutral in a referendum after an election. But that’s not the real mistake. The big error is wanting an election before a referendum.
Jeremy Corbyn set out his views in the Guardian today:
A Labour government would secure a sensible deal based on the terms we have long advocated, including a new customs union with the EU; a close single market relationship; and guarantees of workers’ rights and environmental protections. We would then put that to a public vote alongside remain. I will pledge to carry out whatever the people decide, as a Labour prime minister.
The frustration of pro-European members of the Labour Party with this position is palpable. Why oh why, they ask, can’t Corbyn come off the fence decisively and say he would back “Remain” in a future referendum? They worry that Labour would lose votes in an election to the Lib Dems, who have adopted a policy of cancelling Brexit in the (totally unrealistic) scenario where they won an overall majority.
But for the pro-European ecosystem as a whole, the combination of Labour fudge and Lib Dem clarity is probably quite good. Although Labour would lose some votes to the Lib Dems, it would scoop up votes from soft Leavers who would otherwise desert the party for the Tories or the Brexit Party.
What’s more, it may be a blessing in disguise if Corbyn himself doesn’t campaign in a referendum and leaves the fight to more enthusiastic members of his party such as Keir Starmer, John McDonnell and Emily Thornberry. In 2016, his half-hearted support for Remain was worse than neutrality.
No, Corbyn’s real error would be to give Boris Johnson an election before holding a referendum. This is what he wrote in the Guardian: “As soon as no deal is off the table, and the prime minister has complied with the law, we need a general election to get rid of Johnson’s Tory government.”
If the Labour leader could be confident of winning an election, fine. But Labour is behind the Conservatives in the polls. What’s more, because of the way our “first-past-the-post” electoral system works, Johnson could win an overall majority with as little as a third of the vote. So rushing into an election could put no-deal right back on the table, even if most of the electorate didn’t want it.
Much better to have a referendum first. That would decide Brexit once and for all. It would be a clear contest – not muddied by other issues or the vagaries of the electoral system. Once that was over, the people could then choose in an election who they want to govern the country.
This is what most Labour MPs want. It’s also what many activists want. At their party’s conference, which starts this weekend, they need to make their voices loud and clear.
Demand a vote on the Brexit deal
Click here to find out moreEdited by James Earley
Brexit would not have been half as heart-breaking and stressful if only Labour, or more precisely that dwarf, had in an earlier stage declared themselves to either support Brexit or not. At least we would have known where we stood with them and gave up hope instead of hoping for support from that side. The utterly pudding-brained way Labour appears to believe that the EU still is receptive to their “plans”; the EU is quite openly sick of Brexit Brits, the sort that comes up with “plans” that simply deny the rules of interaction and co-operation within the EU. That, more to the point, in an earlier stage the Brits themselves helped to develop, as infacts has shown to be the case earlier! Talk about a failure of the short-term memory among 52% year n this country.
Theresa May ran an election in 2017 because she was advised that Labour were on the ropes. That turned out well, didn’t it ? The picture of her face when she realised what she’d done, is one I shall treasure forever. Fact is , polls have a nasty habit, these days, of being rubbish. Secondly, Bojo started off being popular because he made people laugh, well, that can’t continue forever and even now, his popularity is fading. It is not impossible that, come October, Parliament can get in a vote of no confidence, put a PM in place who will have the balls to cancel Article 50 with whatever excuse will wash with the public and the UK will return to something like normality. Vain hope, I know.
In Facts has got it right: people’s vote before a general election. Mr Corbyn has called it wrong all the way through.
We wouldn’t have had all this, or at least there would have been a much better chance of it having been knocked on the head first time round, if Jeremy Corbyn hadn’t spent 2015-16 bathing in the admiration of Momentum. Instead of that, he should have been out on the stump, especially in the “left-behind” areas, campaigning on his socio-economic policies and the ending of austerity and tying in Remain with them, putting the blame where it lay: squarely on the shoulders of the Tories. The Ref would have much more likely been won by Remain had something like that happened.
His Brexiteering has helped to enable all this trouble, condemned those worst affected by austerity to further suffering, and enabled the rise of the far right, partnered by the fantastical and the incompetent, to the extent that we are now having to watch the foundations of our democracy very nearly crumbling.
He may yet have to join us on the barricades to help see this lot off, but don’t lets hold our breath on that one.
Despite the danger the country is in the opposition parties are not coming together as one. Both Lab and the LDs have positioned themselves so as to look after their own electoral interests rather than the national interest. It is dismal. I have little time for Corbyn and believe he is in the clutches of McCluskey. Swinson is loving the limelight and providing plenty of photo ops but her screeching voice makes her sound pretty stupid. She now says revoke Article 50 but five years ago she was in favour of an in-out referendum when part of the nasty austerity coalition.
A second referendum must come first before any election. In the meantime, perhaps more Leavers will start to see through Johnson. The more staged appearances he makes up and down the country the more opportunities there are for people to confront him before the cameras. Ordinary members of the public are actually better than opposition parties in revealing the lies and bluster of Johnson! Loved the guy today slagging Johnson off about the NHS. He was made to look foolish.
What is wrong with Labour members that despite their overwhelming support for Remain, also amongst their voters, they still keep Jeremy Corbyn as leader?
He should be 10 points ahead in the polls given the clown we now have in Downing Street. Isn’t there something in their party rules, to allow a review of their leadership? As own goals go, this one takes some beating.