Corbyn’s taste for Brexit fudge leaves us facing a national trauma that only a Final Say referendum can remedy

The Labour leader must understand what his party wants of him, and what Tom Watson has tried in vain to tell him

Whether he “stormed out” of the shadow cabinet meeting or rather took his leave politely and just nipped out to try and discover what Labour’s latest policy on Brexit is, Tom Watson’s frustration with his party’s attitude has long been more than apparent. He may express himself in sotto voce tones and measured terms, but Mr Watson ill-concealed irritation is justified: Labour is in a mess about Brexit.

The national executive committee’s latest policy proposal is a familiar reworking of its usual fudge, and it is not good enough. Labour is betraying its own people, and the wider electorate, by failing to back a Final Say referendum on whatever the terms of Brexit turn out to be. It is quite something from a party that purports to be both democratic and socialist to want to betray the people and, in particular, working people and the most vulnerable in society – those who will suffer most from any form of Brexit.

So quite apart from anything else, and leaving aside base electoral calculations and internal party plotting, this is a matter of high principle on a matter of huge national importance. As The Independent has long argued, the people, having expressed (albeit narrowly and after a lamentable campaign) their wish for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, now have the right to confirm whether what awaits them is in fact what they voted for, and, in any case, what they now wish to see happen.

A decision of this magnitude cannot be taken by MPs alone – there is a democratic imperative at work here, as the hugely popular Put It To The People marches and other events have demonstrated. After almost three years of the most extensive exercise in deliberative democracy ever undertaken anywhere, the British people are now in a position to make their choice on a thoroughly informed basis.

Whatever government or prime minister ends up with the Brexit deal – Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy Hunt – the electorate has a right to give or withhold approval. Now we know what Brexit really is, we can decide in full possession of the facts. That was simply impossible in 2016.

Sovereignty effectively moved from parliament to the people in 2016, and there it remains, at least so far as this issue is concerned. Leaving or remaining without popular assent is unthinkable now.

Of course, there are many people who still believe that leaving the EU is the right policy, including on hard Brexit terms. They are among the vocal supporters of Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party, as well as its less lovely progenitor, Ukip, and a few far-right splinter groups. It is their right to believe that, and the fact that their judgement has not been moved greatly by the intervening debates suggests they are indeed passionate about it. Come the confirmatory referendum, they will be able to express their view once again. They would not be “betrayed” by an opportunity to secure Brexit once and for all in a free and fair national vote.

The campaign for a Final Say referendum is not about Remain, as such (though we think there are certainly advantages to ending the Brexit trauma through a vote to stay in the EU). A Final Say is precisely that: if the verdict is Leave, and on specific terms, then that should be, indeed, the final say, and Remainers would have to accept that verdict.

The objection is sometimes raised that a new referendum would be divisive. It would certainly be impassioned – against the oddly passive campaign that preceded the shock 2016 result. Yet imagine Britain being taken out of the EU for good without popular approval. Imagine if the UK was taken half out without popular approval. The resentments would fester for decades. The stab-in-the-back conspiracy theories would proliferate. There would be no closure.

A confirmatory referendum, thus, could also be a step towards leaving without national trauma, and with greater acceptance. If a deal, should we ever get one, is backed by the people, the country would be in a better position to move on, even if it’s by another slim majority. Without a referendum to confirm public backing for any deal, we would all be left to judge, speculate, approve or gripe about whether such a deal can draw on a three-year-old, deeply flawed vote for its legitimacy.

Of course, it is at least theoretically possible that a bizarre turn of events might see Mr Corbyn in Downing Street, swiftly renegotiating Brexit on his own terms, and coming back with a new deal from Brussels. However, the chances are that he would find it difficult to secure a majority for such a deal in parliament, just as Ms May has found it for her own unsatisfactory compromise. We would in other words be back to square one – with parliament in deadlock.

But even if Ms May somehow managed to secure her deal in the Commons, possibly with some Labour support, or Mr Corbyn was able to do the same, there is still a strong moral and constitutional case for a confirmatory referendum on any Brexit deal. For no parliament, whether a Tory or a Labour one, has the power to abrogate the rights of British people without their express consent. The constitutional principle, unwritten but real, was established in 2016 that the people are sovereign in such matters. Anything less than a national referendum would be an insult to the electors who have now been empowered with their own destiny – a real betrayal of democracy, not just Brexit.

As Monty Python almost said, Mr Corbyn is not the messiah. He is a politician and so inevitably has to concern himself with political calculation, plots and stratagems. He needs to watch his back.

The Labour leader, above all, needs to understand what his party’s supporters, members and MPs expect from him – as Mr Watson has tried to explain to him. They expect Mr Corbyn, in short, to back a referendum that puts any Brexit deal to the people. Some of Mr Corbyn’s allies, and some MPs and unions, dislike the idea. However, it is the overwhelming desire of his party – which belongs to the Labour movement, not a nepotistic clique parked at HQ – to have that final say on Brexit, including a “Labour Brexit”.

Mr Corbyn might also reflect on how better to mobilise his support in the local and the European elections. A commitment to a referendum would be a popular move, and one that might actually give him a chance of beating the Brexit Party in June.

Already there are voices emanating from the fiercely pro-EU Momentum movement urging Mr Corbyn to “pick a side”. Momentum seems likely to urge party members to elect a pro-EU, anti-Brexit “slate” at the next NEC elections, and it seems sure to strengthen Labour’s policy at the (supposedly) sovereign party conference in the autumn – not long before the current 31 October Brexit deadline.

Assuming no Brexit deal is agreed by parliament and the EU by Halloween, Mr Corbyn should be reminded that Momentum put him in the post he now holds, and it can remove him from it too. Momentum had a motto not so long ago on its T-shirts and badges: “Love Corbyn, Hate Brexit”. Mr Corbyn should be mindful that most probably love the EU even more than they love him. It would be odd if he followed Ms May onto the scrapheap of history thanks to Brexit, but stranger things have happened.