Boris Johnson is pushing anti-Brexit liberals towards Jeremy Corbyn — finally

Faced with a snap election and the illiberalism of the Tories, Britain’s progressives will soon recognise that the Labour leader has all along been their best bet

It suits Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies on the right and rivals at the alleged liberal centre to represent him as a closet authoritarian and anti-democrat; Stalin in gardening gloves. Never a particularly convincing representation of a man who has sanguinely tolerated more disloyalty from MPs than any previous Labour leader, the cottage industry of comment perpetuating this view, though argument or innuendo, looks particularly irresponsible after the past week.

The Conservative Party has in effect suspended parliament, hinted that it could ignore legislation passed before the suspension kicks in, and used deselection threats as a blackmail tool against its own MPs. This isn’t even a freak turn of the “populist” Boris Johnson era. Theresa May’s tenure was sustained by bribing another party into a confidence and supply arrangement, dubiously packing committees with Tory majorities, ignoring opposition motions, and even breaking the “pairing” vote convention for an MP absent on maternity leave. May’s was the first government to be found in contempt of parliament over its suppression of inconvenient legal advice it had received on Brexit.

Corbyn’s record, by contrast, has been one of dedication to the liberal principle of due process, even when electorally inexpedient. During the Salisbury poisoning affair last year, Corbyn was attacked for calling for the publication of evidence before ascribing blame to the Russian government, as well as for stressing the need to see Russian interventions in Britain through the lens of Russian money laundering embraced in the City of London.

When the teenage “Isis bride” Shamima Begum attempted to return to the UK with her new-born earlier this year, then home secretary, Sajid Javid, played to the Tory base by stripping her of citizenship. Corbyn pleaded Begum’s right to legal aid to challenge the decision. In recent reports, Begum is effectively stateless in Syria, her baby dead from pneumonia.

In another example, Corbyn opposes the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, due next year, sparking fears over Assange's safety. This has put Corbyn at variance with many on the left for whom the rape allegations against Assange place him beyond moral defence. Yet for Corbyn, the point is that the extradition has nothing to do with these allegations, and everything to do with America's aim to criminalise the exposure of US atrocities.

While it is true that Labour has, for complex institutional reasons, struggled to sustain an adequate policy on antisemitism cases, it is also the case that the solutions of Corbyn’s critics – “just throw the cranks out” – have often come down to an analogous preference for positive optics over everybody receiving a fair hearing.

A few years ago, it was voguish on the centre left to speak of a “post-liberal” Britain, with an increasingly culturally conservative population. It appears now that the real “post-liberalism” has been the dereliction of their own principles by “moderate” liberals themselves, leaving it to the radical left to mount consistent opposition to illegal war, making people stateless, and attacks on the free press and human rights.

The question today is whether, faced with the illiberalism of the Tories now too blatant to ignore, Britain’s liberals will recognise that Corbyn has all along been their best bet. The weekend saw huge (and in some cases ongoing) demonstrations against Johnson across the country, uniting well-heeled Remainers and Eurosceptic leftists after years of acrimony. In Manchester, it also saw the return of Extinction Rebellion, the environmentalist group that has allowed the British bourgeoisie to reconnect with the virtues of disruptive direct action, establishing a Glastonbury-like camp impeding one of the city’s most polluted roads.

Figureheads for Remain in the media, in other parties, and within Labour itself, have too-often falsely painted Corbyn as an authoritarian hard Brexiteer and as interchangeable with Johnson. But the Corbynphobia of their ordinary supporters is far shallower. Most of them voted for him in 2017, after all, and – despite the misgivings of many Corbyn supporters including myself – a second referendum with a Remain option in all circumstances is now Labour’s policy.

The realisation that getting their way against no deal and on the environment is going to require a confrontational and anti-establishment attitude to politics also places liberals in a new alignment with Corbyn, once derided as a mere “protest” politician.

A snap election is looming, and no side can fight it on Brexit alone. It will be for Britain’s liberals to consider who best reflects their stated principles of due process, equality before the law, human rights, and action on the environment. Just as importantly, they must decide who has shown the most resilience in defending these principles against entrenched interests, the existence and power of whom they are increasingly disabused about.