Labour says no to Remain. It was the shabbiest spectacle I’ve ever seen

‘I thought it was one way. Jennie said something else. That was lost.’ These are the words that should go on the Labour Party’s tombstone, perhaps in a matter of weeks

Perhaps the only way to make sense of all the shouting and screaming and chanting and voting as the Labour Party moved to formalise its most recent position on Brexit, is to close our eyes and transport ourselves to your front door in a few weeks time.

Knock knock.

You open it. There is a man or woman standing there with a red rosette, asking for your vote in the coming general election. “What are you going to do about Brexit?” you ask.

The man or woman takes a deep breath:

“We are committed to legislating for a second referendum within six months. Before that we’re going to go back to Brussels and negotiate a completely new deal in the space of a few weeks even though the last one took years.

“Then we’re going to have a special, one day conference in which the party will decide whether to back its own deal or whether to back Remain in the second referendum.

“But whatever that conference decides, the prime minister Jeremy Corbyn probably isn’t going to take any notice of it. He, the actual prime minister, is going to sit it out entirely. But it won’t just be him. After we’ve had this special, one day conference, nobody in the government will be expected to take any notice of it. They’re going to be free to campaign for whatever they like.”

Right, you might ask. “So are you Leave or Remain?”

The man or woman yawns. “I think I’ve made that perfectly clear.”

The events that carried the Labour Party to this abysmal point were predictably abysmal. All afternoon the Labour delegates argued about whether to adopt “Composite 13” or “Composite 14”, or both.

In short, the first one would have forced the Labour Party to explicitly back Remain, the second allows it to keep its options open.

Jeremy Corbyn, a Brexiteer of three decades standing, prefers 14. And so, in seeking to defeat 13, his supporters managed to turn it into a de facto confidence vote on Corbyn’s leadership, which he did not lose.

It means that Labour will fight the imminent election on a platform of what can only really be described as a Bully’s Special Prize Brexit. You may decide to gamble on voting for them, but only if they win do you get to find out what’s behind the screen.

Could be Leave, could be Remain, could be neither. Could be a car, could be a speedboat, could be designer leisurewear for all the family.

Just vote here and you’ll find out later.

The mental contortions that took the party to this point were incredible. Up the various delegates came to the conference platform to make their case, principally to genuflect at the altar of Saint Jeremy.

One, from the Tottenham branch, jabbed his finger into the lectern and said: “Jeremy was right on Iraq, he was right on austerity, and he is right on our strategy and tactics on Brexit.”

It was the most denuded example of what was, in essence, a theological debate on Magic Grandpapal infallibility. This, ostensibly, was party democracy in action, but it never rose beyond the claim that, “If Jeremy says it, it must be right.”

Democracy indeed, but of a decidedly North Korean kind.

Not since Carl Lewis and Mike Powell battled it out on that famous night in Tokyo, in 1991, have more incredible leaps been witnessed.

Gary Ostrolenk, from Camberwell & Peckham, took the view that, because the 2016 referendum had actually been a referendum on austerity and neoliberalism, if the party backed Remain now, it would actually be in favour of those things. All you can do, when faced with such towering logic, is stand and applaud.

A woman called Vanessa Stilwell, there ostensibly to offer a view on Labour’s Brexit policy, saw fit to declare: “Jeremy Corbyn is the most anti-racist leader this party has ever had!”

They went wild. Labour’s most anti-racist leader? Down in the lower reaches of the Freeview channels, there are precious few list shows that have not yet been made. The Labour Party’s Most Anti-Racist Leaders would be compelling viewing.

On what basis Jeremy Corbyn edges out, say, Michael Foot, Keir Hardie, Neil Kinnock, Clement Attlee and the rest is not immediately clear, not least as none of them have been accused of active complicity in racism, but evidently Ms Stilwell will have some thoughts to offer. And good on her.

Richer and more textured farce was to come. When the delegates in the conference hall eventually came to vote, on composite 13, a decision that was predicted to split the hall fairly evenly, they did so via a show of hands.

To everyone present, it looked fairly evenly split. Up on the platform, Wendy Nichols, the trade union official who was chairing the occasion, was sitting next to Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary and key Corbyn ally. The words she uttered next were as historic as these things ever get.

She looked out at the room. She paused. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind.

“I thought it was one way,” she said. “Jennie said something else. That was lost.”

There were gasps and cheers in equal measure. Ms Nichols, the actual chair of the event, thought that the motion had carried, that Remain had won, but was saying, openly, that she had been overruled.

There was the option, at this point, to have a “card vote” – to count up the votes properly, if the show of hands is inconclusive. But that was rejected too. Half the hall, and I do mean half, exactly half, began chanting “Oh Jeremy Corbyn.”

Over the coming days, weeks and months, when Corbyn has no choice but to avoid giving an honest answer as to his own views on Brexit, he will, as a matter of certainty, defer to the position that it is not his choice to make, that “the Labour Party is a democratic party” and it will be up to the party to decide.

This, this, is the democracy he has in mind. I thought it was one way. Jennie said something else.

They are words that should go on the party’s tombstone, perhaps in just a few weeks.