With Vote Leave under investigation and Davis and Johnson’s resignations, it’s time Corbyn backed a second referendum

The opposition leader, whether in favour of Brexit or not, surely has a duty to raise concerns about the malpractices the Electoral Commission has already identified

You have to hand it to Jeremy Corbyn, for speed if nothing else. Well before 1am this morning, he was tweeting: “David Davis resigning at such a crucial time shows Theresa May has no authority left and is incapable of delivering Brexit.”

His glee, if that’s the word, is hardly surprising, given that Davis’s departure underlined that an unholy alliance between the most europhobic Tories (for whom Friday’s Chequers agreement was too pragmatic) and the opposition (for whom it wasn’t pragmatic enough) means May would be struggling, to put it mildly, to command a parliamentary majority for any deal based on that agreement – even supposing that the EU was itself up for it. All the more so after Boris Johnson's resignation this afternoon.

The Labour leadership’s enthusiastic response to the latest, and probably worst, of the successive crises into which the EU referendum two years ago has plunged the government is wholly understandable. What it didn’t do, of course, was to raise the reasonable question of whether Brexit can or should be “delivered” at all. And it’s strikingly different to the party’s reaction to an important piece of news almost a week ago.

When it emerged that the Electoral Commission had drafted a finding that the Vote Leave campaign, led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, had violated funding rules, it was greeted with a deafening silence by Her Majesty’s opposition.

Yet by any standards this was a sensational development. The incriminating judgement of the Electoral Commission that the Vote Leave campaign illegally channelled over £600,000 to a smaller satellite organisation in the closing weeks of the referendum campaign not only suggested that the campaigners had cheated, but had that struck a lethal blow to the heart of the British democratic process. And would have done if there were not also growing concerns over whether the Brexit campaign was assisted by Russian meddling.

Corbyn – and for that matter Starmer – might have issued the most guarded of tweets, along the lines of “while we accept that the Commission has yet to produce its final version, its draft conclusions are a matter of grave concern”. But they didn’t even do that.

Corbyn devoted the entirety of Prime Minister’s Questions to bus services – a worthy subject but one which could have been raised any week. On that day’s main – and highly political – story (triggered by a nakedly pre-emptive leak from the Vote Leave CEO Matthew Elliott), he had nothing to say.

The reason, of course, isn’t hard to find. Which is the deep reluctance by Corbyn and his closest allies to do nothing which could be interpreted as challenging a referendum result which they remain, so far, determined to see implemented.

That’s a political choice, of course. They might have reacted to a very narrow referendum result by treating it just as they would a general election; embarking on a long campaign to persuade the British electorate to change its mind in a second referendum, the case for which would have been steadily reinforced by the chaos which was attending the negotiations and which has now reached its climax with the resignation of the country’s chief negotiator. But they didn’t.

Whatever the reasons for that political choice, have they now forfeited a higher duty, to try and protect the integrity of British democracy? This is all the more important because worthy as it is, the Commission is not a powerful enough body to sanction the perpetrators of electoral misconduct, let alone – unthinkable as it seems – demand a re-run of the referendum.

This isn’t a new discovery, as it happens. Back in 2001 when the Electoral Commission was established, a number of senior MPs opposed it, suggesting that parliament was the best regulator of electoral behaviour – and the vigilance of MPs the best deterrent of malpractice.

In the informal but largely effective system that existed if malpractice came to light, a senior Home Office official acted as an address for complaints, relaying them if necessary – if the government of the day appeared to be at fault – to the cabinet secretary to ensure that it was rectified. The theory was that neither party was interested in cheating because it would give their opponents the licence to cheat next time around.

The danger of setting up a commission, its opponents argued, was that the government of the day would simply pass the buck by saying, “That’s a matter of the commission.” Which is actually just what happened when complaints about the referendum’s conduct first surfaced.

And that the Commission might not have the electoral knowledge, investigative skills or firepower (the maximum fine it can impose in the current case is £20,000) and above all the credible authority with the public to right the wrongs.

That’s all the clearer now that neither the Commission, nor the out of date legal framework it is supposed to enforce, is equipped to regulate abuses of online campaigning and its complex, highly sophisticated deployment of data. So whether the old mechanism would have been robust – or alert – enough to prevent or rectify misconduct in the referendum is very doubtful.

But what is clear is that if the Commission sticks to its guns, its report will have little traction unless the opposition – backed by pro-Remain Tories – start to make waves about it. Which it shows no sign of doing.

In the longer term no doubt the answer is reform of electoral law and a beefed up Commission. John Holmes, its present chairman, is a distinguished diplomat with extensive experience in Downing Street, as British ambassador in Paris, and the UN. But it’s pretty clear that through no fault of his own he lacks the power or the authority to persuade a highly polarised public that an electoral – or referendum result – was illegitimate.

We are now stuck with an Electoral Commission, but it’s doubtful that it could assume that authority without being supervised by a (very) senior judge – perhaps even the head of the Supreme Court. What after all could be more crucial to the country than preserving the cleanliness of our democracy?

In the shorter term, however, the opposition leader, whether in favour of Brexit or not, surely has a duty to raise concerns about the malpractices the Commission has already identified. At the very least the latest revelations should call into question the absolute sacredness of the referendum result, which he continues, no less than the government itself, to stress.

The Davis and Johnson resignations have, more dramatically than before, focussed the political beltway on what kind of Brexit there should be. Last week’s revelations, if nothing else. should strengthen the case for the wider public to be given a second chance, in the light of the negotiating difficulties and the economic dangers the previous referendum result has triggered, to decide whether it still wants a Brexit at all.