What happens if Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell at the last moment shift their position and do the unthinkable, that is vote for Theresa May’s Brexit deal next month?
In my column – online now – for The Times – that is one of the scenarios I mention in a broader piece about why I think with time running out it comes down to this deal or no deal. And with the numbers so bad for the government, and no sign of a major concession from the EU, no deal looks ever more likely. In which case the Tories will need an emergency leader to replace May in just a few weeks.
Read it here. Register and you can read two articles on The Times for free every week.
Why would Corbyn and McDonnell suddenly switch? This is not a prediction. It simply occurred to me as a wildcard and I am simply pointing out that if they did so it would cause carnage for the Tories.
Against as many as 40 or 50 of her MPs, and probably against the DUP on which her fragile government rests, she would have won only with the help of the Labour front-bench. Imagine if they decided to make it a one off free vote for Labour MPs, with a reluctant recommendation that the deal was better than nothing. That could get May over the line on the deal.
And then what?
In the wake of such a development would the anti-agreement Tories continue to vote with the Conservative whip in such circumstances? Or might they vote as a bloc with the DUP? It is not hard to see how a split or breakaway could happen by accident.
Whatever the outcome it would be bitter.
In choosing such a path, the Labour leadership could say that May’s deal is not ideal, but is still better in their view than no deal. Labour would have delivered a compromise Brexit and in the Tory chaos afterwards they could say they would do a better job on negotiating the future relationship.
Incidentally, Labour could also say there is no majority in the Commons for a rerun of the referendum. There doesn’t appear to be one. And there are only weeks left.
Sometimes the most obvious strategic switch doesn’t happen, because the practical political complications make it insurmountable. But McDonnell is a student of Lenin, and the strategists around Corbyn are versed in Lenin’s writings in which he spoke of sudden improvisation – Lenin’s Leaps – to leapfrog the mainstream and advance the cause of socialist revolution.
I wonder…
If May finds her deal put through on the back of red hot socialist votes, creating Tory warfare afterwards that is even worse than now, there will have to be quite an inquiry by CCHQ, Tory donors, and the party membership, or whatever by that point would be left of it.
