Jeremy Corbyn’s latest Brexit fudge has probably lost Labour the next election

Editorial: Labour’s constructive ambiguity, which worked well in the conditions of the 2017 general election, now works against it – and will go down as badly in Barnsley and Ashfield as in Cambridge or Putney

Labour delegates reject plan to commit to Remain at conference yesterday (Getty)

Logic and politics do not always mix so well, as the Labour leadership is discovering.

In fairness to Jeremy Corbyn and his closest allies, the contorted and non-committal proposal he has made on Labour’s stance on Brexit is perfectly logical. If a general election does proceed this autumn before a Final Say referendum is held, then there is much to be said for putting a deal to the British people, with the option to remain on the ballot paper.

The trouble, obviously, is that no such deal exists; it is unlikely to by the end of the year under the present government; and no deal has been ruled out by parliament. If a Labour government were to be elected, it would, perfectly legitimately, seek to negotiate another deal with the EU. That could then be put before the people.

Though internally logical, the trouble with all that is that it fails the “doorstep test”. The Labour party’s policy on the most important issue facing the country should be capable of being explained to a puzzled voter in a couple of minutes. It is not. It should also be persuasive, a vote winner, something that is clear and bold and memorable. It is not that either. Labour has lumbered itself with a policy that will be poorly understood even among its own activist base.

Worse than that, Labour members, invariably passionate Remainers, won’t believe in it. They know that the chaotic voting scenes in the conference hall were basically an old-fashioned leadership stitch-up. Mr Corbyn did win his vote, but he did so with the assistance of trade union block votes, especially Len McCluskey’s. Mr Corbyn won his vote against the wishes of his army of individual supporters and, for what its worth, individual members of the Unite union, none of whom were balloted on this most transcendent of political questions.

If an election comes in a few weeks, the Brexit Party, the Liberal Democrats and even the Conservatives are able to offer a degree of clarity to their positions. Labour does not. Every voter will know where they stand, what they stand for. Labour has decided to be neutral in the most vital political battle it has ever had to face. Who wants to vote for neutrality about Brexit? Which activist is going to be inspired to go out leafleting on dark, damp nights in November and ask people to vote for a party that can’t say whether it want to be in Europe or not? Where is the simple meme that sums up Labour’s policy (non-satirically)? Which frontbencher is going to be able to make the case convincingly in TV debates and on the hustings?

Moreover, the policy’s failure to convince the electors will extend right across the spectrum. Leave voters, whose hostility to the EU trumps all other considerations, will not be impressed by this wishy-washy approach, and in any case will have heard Tom Watson, Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer and others making the case for Remain. Leave voters, the ones in the north and midlands that Labour frets about, will feel liberated to opt instead for the comparative certainty of Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson.

By contrast Remain voters, the more devoted ones, will instead place their faith in Jo Swinson, the Greens, the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru’s well-known implacable hostility to Brexit. They too know where they stand. Any wavering Remainers will also be disturbed by the “neutrality” on the issue displayed by Mr Corbyn, and draw their own conclusions. They will not be convinced that Ms Thornberry and Mr Watson will get their way when the time comes.

Labour’s constructive ambiguity, which worked well in the conditions of the 2017 general election, now works against it – and will go down as badly in Barnsley and Ashfield as in Cambridge or Putney. The stance tends to achieve the remarkable feat of alienating voters on all sides of the Brexit debate, in its way a technical marvel that future political strategists will cite as a case study in how not to do politics.

The Labour Party’s position on Brexit is weak, weak, weak. As Winston Churchill once said in another context, the party’s leadership is “decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent”. Mr Corbyn won his vote, by hook or by crook, but much good it will have done him, his party and the nation in the longer run. He has used up a huge amount of his political capital among the ordinary membership, and still more among the voting public, where his approval rating languishes at the historic low of minus 60 points.

It will not help Labour win the next election, whenever it comes. It has exposed their confusion and divisions and antique methods of decision making – shows of hands, outcries, references back and composites don’t make for an impressive look in the touchscreen age. Other policies sometimes appear extreme and ill-thought-out, and unaffordable. Does anyone really think a four day week for five day’s pay is within reach?

More than at any time since the Thirties Labour seem destined for decimation a general election. For the first time in a century Labour may come third in the national vote share. What is impossible about such an outcome? Would anyone outside the Corbyn-Milne axis be shocked?

Five years more of opposition awaits, and with it all the fine pledges we’ve heard so much about will have turned to dust. Maybe another defeat awaits Labour in a few years.

As with previous generations of Labour figures in the Tory ascendancies in the Fifties and Eighties, the likes of Angela Rayner, Dawn Butler and Jonathan Ashworth, bright younger talents, let alone Mr Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell, will end the frontbench careers where they began them, on the opposition benches without a single day in ministerial office – utterly wasted.

Five more years of making speeches and knocking out policy papers and making impossible promises pickled into otherworldly composites. Five more years of rule under an Old Etonian junta. Five more years of Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Dominic Cummings, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg. A bad day in Brighton, then, but most of all for “the many” that Labour are letting down.