Brexiteer hero Corbyn unblocks deadlock and makes it decision time for the Tory ERG
It is a little known fact (*not a fact) that at all their meetings the Brexiteers toast Jeremy Corbyn as their secret hero on the basis that they could not have got this close to leaving the EU without the assistance of the Labour leader. He has blocked Labour’s disorganised Remainers every step of the way.
Last month, deep underground at 55 and a half Tufton Street, the central London location where the Brexit conspiracy is based, with a small front operation at 55 Tufton Street to throw the Observer newspaper off the scent, I saw as many as 800 excited Tory Brexiteers dressed in uniform. That evening the dress code was Admiral Nelson; Queen Elizabeth II in Household Cavalry Red, horse optional; or Field Marshall Alanbrooke. They raised their glasses of champagne and shouted “to Jeremy.”
Corbyn has always been in favour of Brexit. It is extraordinary how long it has taken some metropolitan Remainers to work this out. He is a Bennite, that is a disciple of Tony Benn. The European Union project was Benn’s idea of hell, not only because he saw it as a capitalist club, but also because he had a deep if sentimental commitment to the centrality of the House of Commons in national life and the class struggle. This was rooted, it seemed, in the English Civil War Parliament and later battles for the rights of Parliament over the Crown. That view of the Civil War as an early example of class conflict resolved in favour, for a while at least, of an emerging class opposed to aristocratic interests, was the dominant critique of the period on the left in the 1940s through to the 1960s. The communist Christopher Hill was a leading Marxist historian on the subject.
The historian John Adamson has since provided a much more convincing explanation for what drove the conflict of the 1640s. In Noble Revolt he outlines the political plotting and scheming, exploring the influence of the House of Lords, that led to the crisis.
Still, for a leftie of Benn’s generation, parliamentary sovereignty and national independence went hand in hand with Marxist philosophy.
Corbyn learnt almost all his views at the knee of Tony Benn, and he hasn’t changed a single one since as far as anyone can tell. He became leader of a Labour party, which had been largely pro-EU since Jaques Delors turned up to tell the TUC in the 1980s that Europe was the alternative route to power at a moment when the Tories under Thatcher dominated domestically. Labour being pro-EU meant Corbyn had to hide his Brexiteering, and the deceit just about got him through the 2016 referendum. Since then he has done everything possible to be unhelpful to the majority in his party seeking to reverse the referendum result.
Now, he and his aides have made their play on Brexit, and what a clever play it is. Today Corbyn wrote to May, liquidating his party’s ludicrous six tests on Brexit and instead proposing five conditions. There’s a good account of what his team envisages here.
Ultimately, it’s an ultra soft Brexit, seeking to get a commitment from the government to a customs union and close single market relationship. They’ll accept the backstop, while saying no-one likes it. Cleverly they want a bill committing the government in law to make soft Brexit its negotiating objective in the future relationship talks after March 29th. It’s Corbyn Labour perhaps finding a way to vote for Brexit, or more likely if the proposals are only half-accepted by May a way of emboldening non-Remainy Labour MPs to rebel and get it over the line. Corbyn can say he tried and sit out the vote but Brexit in some form passes. He wants to leave. He really wants to leave the EU.
Amusingly, there was no room in the short letter for Corbyn to mention a second referendum. No room, or that’s a reflection of him not wanting one, which he doesn’t, because he is a Brexiteer.
Some of May’s ministers have welcomed the Corbyn initiative and promised talks. Labour Remainers are beyond furious, and all manner of threats to leave the party and do… something… are being made. We’ll see.
Any Tories dismissing this initiative from Corbyn should pause. For the other consequence is to put the ERG, and other Tory hardliners, who want a pure Brexit or no deal on the spot.
Corbyn has put a soft Brexit – a soft Brexit the ERG hates but that the DUP could accept – back on the table. There are almost certainly the votes for it in the Commons but it will take a little time to put together the coalition of interests. And even if it fails, there is majority to force the government into demanding a delay.
In the meantime, there is May’s deal, that the ERG hates. There it sits, with the possibility of a Brussels post-it note being stuck on the side saying “nobody likes the backstop, but technology, and here’s a sketch of a laser”, and it leads out on March 29th with a political declaration element that is vague to the point of meaningless.
May’s deal is a mess in all manner of ways but it is at least cleaner than the ghastly version being cooked up Oliver Letwin, Remain Cabinet ministers, Labour MP Lisa Nandy, and now Corbyn’s team.
Tory anti-deal Brexiteers, what’s it to be? You’ve done a lot of gambling – on keeping May there, wrongly, in 2017; and on much other wishful thinking that didn’t work – and here it is. May’s deal with a tweak. Or a version of the Corbyn deal. Make your mind up time.