Corbyn’s Brexit incoherence

Jeremy Corbyn is neither the cause of Brexit nor is he a participant in government Brexit policy, but his incoherence is helping the Tory Right.

The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Saturday June 23rd saw around 100 000 people from all political parties march through the centre of London to oppose Brexit and call for a second referendum. The cry went up, “Where’s Jeremy Corbyn?” who, of course, was not there. Supporters of Corbyn’s leadership need to state frankly some home truths.

Brexit is the most significant development in British politics so far this century; and Jeremy Corbyn’s position on the issue is a complete mess. In the 2016 referendum, Labour campaigned for Remain, but Jeremy’s backing was only half-hearted, as his views were still frozen in a eurosceptic hangover from the Benn years a generation before.

Essentially today Corbyn has evolved a neutral stance hovering between the three factions that divide Labour MPs on the issue - the view of the wider Labour membership, overwhelmingly anti-Brexit and radical hardly seems to count.

One faction is the Brexit supporters or sympathises (some of them post -referendum converts) who support Brexit on xenophobic grounds. These MPs, mostly, representing northern English small towns, want to echo the anti-immigrant prejudices which motivated much of the Leave vote. Their main issue is to stop free movement, and as representatives of indigenous people, instead of working people irrespective of nationality, they can’t really be considered left-wing or progressive at all.

A second faction are the so-called Lexiteers. These people believe that EU rules would prevent a future Labour government from implementing a genuine socialist programme.But the chance of a majority of Labour MPs after the next election supporting such a programme is remote. If, on the contrary, a future Labour government were to achieve the same level of social progress as in those EU countries of north-west Europe, Jeremy Corbyn would be heralded the most successful socialist prime minister in Labour history. In short, Lexiteers are fantasists, who are doing nothing more than helping the political right.

The third faction is that mass of Blairite Labour MPs who oppose Brexit, but have now reconciled themselves to campaigning for a soft Brexit in which the UK stays in the customs union and some parts of the single market. Their fault is that they are thoroughly anti-Corbyn and see Brexit entirely through the lens of business interests. Their ideal solution would be to allow freedom of movement for capital, services and goods, but to restrict the free movement of people..

For the sake of people’s rights, economic prosperity, Ireland and opposition to xenophobic populism, one would have expected Jeremy Corbyn to come out as a firm opponent of Brexit. But he does nearly nothing, except mutter that 52 percent of the electorate in 2016 backed Leave, so he supports Leave. Since when has the policy of the Labour Party been made by a poll of the British electorate? Why does he oppose a second referendum?

Labour’s position is thus utterly incoherent. The Labour Party just talks nonsense while the damage of Brexit - both economic and political - is being done by the Right of the Tory Party, almost unopposed.