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If Jeremy Corbyn isn't careful, his barely there leadership could lead to mutiny – again

As the Brexit doomsday clock ticks on, what the Labour leader cannot do, for the 793rd time, is nothing

Matthew Norman
Tuesday 18 December 2018 17:03 GMT
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Theresa May confirms date for meaningful vote on Brexit deal for 2019

In the matter of Jeremy Corbyn’s absenteeism without leave, I refer the honourable reader to the columns I (and countless others) wrote some days, weeks and months ago.

Self-plagiarism is nothing to brag about. In a university essay, my son tells me, any reference to anything written before automatically ensures nil points.

It is equally pointless but also compelling to harp on and on about the Labour leader’s continuing lack of anything useful to offer on the defining issue of this generation and many to come.

In this context, it’s a relief of sorts that he’s finally offered something.

Unfortunately, it’s the sort of relief that belongs to the ancient gag about the fella whose doctor asks him if he wants the good or bad news first.

“I’ll take the bad.” “I’m afraid you have cancer.” “Jesus Christ. What’s the good news?” “You have Alzheimer’s as well. You’ll know sod all about the cancer by Wednesday week.”

What was Corbyn thinking when on Monday he proposed a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s leadership?

This could be the memory playing tricks, but I have some vague recollection that a vote of the kind was held before, this being a question for them rather than the House, by Conservative MPs.

It was long enough ago for the details to evade me (was it just before or after decimalisation? I’m pretty sure I paid for a pint of milk and a loaf that day with a ten bob note, so presumably before).

But since May appears still to be prime minister, logic suggests she won. In which case, is it too cynical to speculate that Corbyn was thinking was that this might be a perfect halfway house between 1) silence (his preferred option) and 2) demanding a vote of no confidence in the government?

If he imagined it would delight critics of the former and assuage fans of the latter, he has a more vivid imagination than previously assumed.

This one belongs to the category of brainwave that comes, through exhaustion or drink, at 4am in the morning, but which the harsh light of dawn tends to illuminate as imbecility of a rare order.

But Corbyn doesn’t drink much, if at all, and has no known reason for fatigue. What he does with his time is one of the conundrums of the age. My theory is that at 9 o’clock each morning, John McDonnell brings him a colouring-in book and a bucket of crayons, and locks him in the office until dusk.

Perhaps that’s unfair. Perhaps he’s working frantically on cracking the code that will reveal to himself what the leader of his party, and potentially imminent leader of his country, regards as the best or least awful escape route from the putrefying quicksand in which we’re sinking.

In one respect, his silence looks golden. Hindsight might reclassify it as fool’s gold. But at this moment his refusal to go for a relevant no confidence motion – one in the government with the capacity to bring it down – seems right.

Being tragically tribal animals, nothing unites party politicians – however falsely – like an attack on the tribe, however dissatisfied with it they may be.

Not one Tory, not even Anna Soubry, would vote against their government. With or without an extra billion slipped into their rapacious little mitts, the DUP would support it. The opposition would lose, and all the antiemetics in Boots wouldn’t quell the nausea as the Conservative back benches rose as one to play-act at unity.

That wouldn’t last for more than a very short while. But time is relative, and with the doomsday clock ticking inexorably towards 29 March, a very short while is an exceedingly long time.

Every moment wasted on parliamentary theatrics is another moment closer to the apocalypse. So is every moment that passes without Corbyn putting away the Crayola and sharing his thoughts.

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The plain fact of a cabinet meeting to discuss preparations for the no-deal corkscrew spin ought, you feel, to focus his mind. We are not many weeks away from an event – one that nobody can be certain is avoidable by a Commons vote – that those best informed about it foresee as an epochal calamity.

If he doesn’t agree with that reading, if Corbyn thinks Mark Carney is a liar or a dunce, his duty is to explain why. If he does agree, he is duty bound to do all in his power – which is colossal; with the government riven and paralysed – to prevent it.

If he can’t decide what he thinks, he is under an equally binding duty to stand aside for someone who has an opinion and the courage to state it.

What he cannot do, for the 793rd time, is nothing. The nihilism of the European Research Group, that disgusting cabal of monied thugs who would incinerate the country to facilitate their insane dreams of empire, has no place in a progressive party that hopes to redistribute wealth that won’t exist if we crash out in March.

You can no more be a conscientious objector in this war than hide behind excruciatingly foolish parliamentary histrionics. You can only be a combatant or a deserter. It’s obvious to all but the cultists which Corbyn has been until now.

How much longer will Keir Starmer and others on the front line be prepared to tolerate the General Melchett of Islington’s leave without absence before they tire of him fannying about and stage mutiny?

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