As sick as I am of this jam-making Labour leader and his Momentum advocates, keeping Brexit off Corbyn's conference agenda was a wise move

Apart from a tiny handful of issues that are important matters of principle in their own right, there’s no reason for Labour to assume ownership of any of this mess

(Getty Images)

It’s been just over a year since I gave my own, rather barbed review of the Government’s Brexit brainstorming session at Chequers. Over a year (and a botched general election) later, I couldn’t be happier that Labour have apparently decided not to mention the B word at its Brighton love-in this week.

Since 23 June last year, I’ve met an inordinate amount of people on both sides of the so-called debate on our future relationship with Europe who say, often in an attempt at Remainer consolation, or to bring the turgid discussion to a swift close, “Well, it’s certainly an interesting time in politics.”

Am I the only one who finds every discussion on this topic tedious almost to the point of profundity? Does anybody really know, or care, what a soft Brexit is? Does anybody give a fiddler’s fart whether the transition period (whatever the hell that is) is two years, or four years long?

As for the soap opera of Cabinet infighting (a term I can only conclude was spread by the Tories themselves in a desperate bid to add a veneer of excitement to the proceedings), it’s enough to give even the quaintest storyline from The Archers a distinct frisson of drama.

On top of all of this, is anybody prepared to say that their life would be enriched by hearing what the scargillian, jam-making, treasurer-of-the-allotment-committee leader of the Labour Party thinks about all of this?

In fairness to said leader of the Labour Party, taking Brexit off the agenda may well stand as one of the more politically savvy moves he – or rather, his sponsors at Momentum (who put forward a number of topics to be debated, all of which were adopted, and none of which included a whiff of the European question) – have made.

While the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary battle it out to become King or Queen of the slag heap that the Conservative Party will have been reduced to by the time they’ve finished, the Labour Party seems more united in the warm afterglow of the unexpectedly successful election than they have been since Jezza became leader in 2015.

Why jeopardise that for the sake of debating something that is far less interesting, and, let’s face it, less important, to many voters than stagnating wages, declining police numbers, poverty, the visceral cutting of local government funding, Islamic terrorism, the rise in hate crime, and the burgeoning funding NHS crisis (to name but a few)?

This titanic mess is, after all, not one of Labour’s making. Jeremy Corbyn didn’t call a snap election that left the Government castrated going into the negotiations. Nor did he, or any of his predecessors, call a referendum earlier than anybody expected in order to overcome weaknesses spawned by the dismal failure of the Conservative Party to secure a strong majority in 2015.

We are all of us footing the bill for the failures of successive Tory leaders when it comes to the European debate. Apart from a tiny handful of issues that are important matters of principle in their own right – such as that those who have built lives here whilst they were free to do so should be allowed to remain – there’s no reason for Labour to assume ownership of any of this.

So instead of the self-immolation that some in the Labour Party seem intent on when they criticise the decision not to debate Brexit this week, why not enjoy the fact that in one stroke the party has made itself more interesting, more relevant and less divided. I say this not as a Corbynista (I most certainly am not that) but as someone who has far more urgent and interesting things to do than talk about Brexit, such as re-arranging my underwear drawer, trolling Jacob Rees-Mogg on Twitter and throwing darts at that photo of Nigel Farage I have sellotaped to my office door.