Leaders Question Time: Corbyn would stay neutral in referendum after renegotiating Brexit

If any of the party leaders who rocked up to BBC’s Question Time Leaders Special on Friday night here in Sheffield thought they were going to have an easy ride, then they will have been sorely disappointed. All of them were put well and firmly on the grill by a hostile and sceptical audience. Tonight’s riled crowd made the audiences faced by leaders in previous election debates in various formats look comparatively tame.

Almost as soon as the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, came to the crease to begin his innings on the Q shaped platform provided by the BBC the mood was intensely combative. It didn’t take long for him to be bombarded by a series of lethal political bouncers, putting him onto the backfoot. The second questioner told Corbyn quite frankly that his “reckless socialist ideas are genuinely terrifying” and would erode rights and freedoms. He was challenged on anti-Semitism scandals in the party and his praise for the recently ousted Bolivian President, Evo Morales.

It reached a crescendo when it came to Labour’s Brexit policy. When asked for a straight answer on his party’s policy on the issue, he said that he would “negotiate a credible deal”, as he had already outlined in Tuesday night’s ITV debate. However, the Labour leader also provided some novel and extraordinary information. In a moment which was either one of spontaneous epiphany or orchestrated catastrophe, Corbyn said that he would “adopt a neutral stance” in a referendum if he becomes Prime Minister. This revelation was, without a doubt, the most important moment of the evening. Corbyn will renegotiate, a third time, and then stay neutral on what he has negotiated. It is a position that opponents will attack on the grounds that it is preposterous.

Corbyn was far more self-assured talking about his views on the “climate emergency” and the need for a “green industrial revolution”, two themes which were central to his manifesto, unveiled on Wednesday. He also received applause when he spoke about scrapping Universal Credit and providing free broadband. He finished on a stronger note after a dreadful opening.

The leader who got the easiest time, and duly performed best, was the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon, who came on after Corbyn. This was probably to be expected – as the leader of a Scottish party, Sturgeon was always going to face less pressing questions from a UK-wide audience. This meant Sturgeon was able to avoid almost entirely any difficult examination about her record in the devolved government of Holyrood, because the thrust of the questions really hinged around what role she would or would not play in the event of a hung parliament in December.

The important takeaway from Sturgeon’s round: the SNP leader believes that, whatever Corbyn is saying in public at the moment, he would fold on a second independence referendum if it came to the crunch and the SNP could put him into Number 10. The Tories will weaponise that to defend the Union.

Yet Sturgeon was under pressure at times – she was pressed hard by the debate’s host, Fiona Bruce, who got the SNP leader to say that, while she would support a second referendum on Brexit, she would never countenance the same principle being applied Scotland, if the Scots ever voted to leave the UK. It would be one referendum for the SNP it seems, and two for the rest of the UK.

Jo Swinson was up next and got off to an unpromising start. She was pressed hard on why she could be trusted to deliver new, more generous social welfare policies when she had voted for the Spare Room Subsidy (also known as the “Bedroom Tax) and supported the creation of Universal Credit.

The zenith of Swinson’s discomfort probably came when she was taken to task by two audience members on her party’s policy of revoking Article 50. One was a frustrated Leave voter, and the other was a Remainer. The first accused her of insulting the intelligence of the 17.4 million voters who had opted for Leave in the 2016 referendum. The second charged that she was guilty of “wishing the last three and a half years hadn’t happened”.

Swinson’s pitch was not compelling, but it was at least clear. When asked what her party had done in the way of fostering political cooperation, she said: “We have stopped Brexit twice.” She implored the audience to “just imagine what we could do if you elected more Liberal Democrat MPs”. Her rhetorical flourishes were greeted with silence by the audience.

Finally, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, came out to the podium as the fourth and final participant. He was met with a mixture of cheers, whistles, and boos from the audience. Johnson was then subjected to a host of very challenging questions. For the most part he managed to bumble through. He tried to get firing on his main election set-piece of getting Brexit done, but the audience was not having it.

He was instead forced mostly to answer challenging questions revolving around a series of subjects away from the central Tory message. These included the NHS, the legacy of austerity policies, and allied Russian electoral interference into the UK’s elections. Johnson also found himself being called out for fostering “racist rhetoric”, and particularly for insulting Muslim women in a Daily Telegraph article written last year.

In the end, Johnson just about muddled through against a tricky audience. He finally managed to fire a shot on getting Brexit done towards the end of his inquisition, and was awarded with applause from Brexiteers when he did so.

The dust had barely settled on the leaders’ discussion before the party spin machines kicked into operation. Corbyn’s new policy of neutrality on Brexit in a referendum was immediately exploited by both the Liberal Democrat and Tory operatives.

Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, said: “It is clear that there was only one leader on the stage.” Corbyn’s neutrality on Brexit was a total abdication of leadership, he claimed. This is likely to play well for the Tories in crystallising views on Corbyn’s Brexit fence-sitting.

All of these issues will be back under discussion next Friday, 29th November, when representatives of all the seven major political parties will be debating in Cardiff. Most of the party leaders will probably be more than happy to let subordinates take on the task after the comprehensive grilling they all received tonight.