How has Labour shifted towards a new referendum?

Politics Explained: Pressure from campaigners and within the party has pushed Jeremy Corbyn towards support for a Final Say

The ambiguous shuffle by the shadow cabinet towards backing a Final Say referendum on any Brexit deal is a significant moment on a long road from Jeremy Corbyn’s acceptance, on the day after the 2016 vote, that Labour would respect the decision to leave the EU.

The Labour leader has long been criticised by Remainers who refused to give up the fight to stay in the EU. He was a lifelong “better off outer”, they said, who tempered his views during the referendum but then prevented Labour from opposing Brexit – thus ceding ground and millions of votes to the Liberal Democrats, Greens and nationalists.

This is probably too simple. It seems more likely that Corbyn was always most interested in gaining power, but had a different view of the right way to go about it. Immediately after the referendum, for example, most Labour people thought it was right to accept the result and to press for a soft Brexit.

And in the 2017 election, Labour’s policy of a “jobs-first Brexit”, combined with opposition to a no-deal exit, was no obstacle to a stunning electoral performance that deprived Theresa May of her majority.

It was only last year – when The Independent started to campaign for a Final Say referendum – that Corbyn’s attempt to straddle Leave and Remain started to cause strains in the party.

Even so, as rival groups argued at today’s shadow cabinet, the evidence is mixed. Labour did badly in the European elections, and yet managed to hold Peterborough in the by-election against a strong Brexit Party challenge.

The New Statesman reports that one analysis prepared for the shadow cabinet suggested that Labour is losing votes in a 2:1:1 ratio to the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Brexit Party. In other words, for every one it loses to the Brexit Party, it loses three to the Remain parties.

This suggests that Labour should take up a more explicitly Remain position – which is what Corbyn is now cautiously doing, although his Remainer critics will say it is too little, too late, and still allows the Lib Dems and the Greens to outflank the party on the pro-EU side.

But Corbyn’s Leaver critics – the 26 MPs who signed a letter to him today opposing a new referendum – say that he risks the worst of both worlds: losing Leave voters on one side while failing to win Remain voters back on the other.

This split is represented at the top of the party, with Ian Lavery, the party chair, posting an angry tweet this morning – which was presumably meant to be a private message – saying that the position of the shadow cabinet supporters of a referendum “really is to head for revoking Article 50”.

On the other side, Emily Thornberry’s public support for a referendum exceeded the bounds of party policy, prompting Corbyn to demote her from her role deputising for him in the Commons (sending her to “re-education camp”, as the prime minister put it). She continued to press her case at the shadow cabinet meeting today.

What is interesting is that Keir Starmer, assumed to be the leading organiser of Labour’s shift of position, has been less outspoken. Yet he has been drafting and redrafting the words of the policy as it has gradually evolved.

The most important force behind the shift has been the views of party members. They are overwhelmingly in favour of a referendum, and of staying in the EU. They were fended off with a complicated policy at the party’s annual conference last year – the compromise once again drafted by Starmer.

And the pressure from many of the trade unions – not including Unite, led by Corbyn’s ally Len McCluskey – has added to the feeling that the line could not be held.

In the end, the decisive voice will probably be that of John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor. He has consistently struck a tone more favourable to a second referendum than Corbyn’s, and he spoke at today’s shadow cabinet to say that opposition from members to the existing policy had become so great that it was time to change the party’s position.

Despite briefing from the party’s spokespeople that Corbyn’s words to the shadow cabinet do not represent a change in policy, it seems there is no doubt that a policy shift is now under way.