Time for Corbyn to prove he’s the Remain man
EVERY day at midday in the Basil Spence masterpiece of Coventry Cathedral, clergy perform a short litany of reconciliation.
In the shadow of the blitzed wartime ruins of the original cathedral, it is a moving little ceremony, a reminder that when we rail against the problems of the world, we need to acknowledge the roots of those problems in our own hearts.
Jeremy Corbyn chose Coventry as a venue for his big Brexit speech this week to emphasise the importance of continued membership of the customs union to car manufacturing in the Midlands. Without tariff-free access to the huge European market, the foundation of car-making in the Midlands – and in the north-east of England, where Theresa May was due to make her Brexit speech until the weather closed in – will be questionable.
Perhaps for Corbyn to finally affirm Labour will back continued membership of the customs union, for the sake of Northern Ireland, for the sake of jobs and trade, and for the sake of common sense, he had undertaken a little probing of his own heart.
The Labour leader has been dragged across the line to back the customs union. That is why it was important to hear Labour’s new litany from Corbyn’s own lips, even if the message had been well trailed.
And despite the fact that he cannot deliver a speech to save himself from Lucifer, and the public love him even more because of it, Corbyn may just have broken the Brexit logjam in Coventry.
A chink of light now opens in the parliamentary arithmetic allowing the Commons to force the Prime Minister’s hand towards the customs union, perhaps defeat her and bring the Government down.
Or perhaps not, predictions are as useful in this political weather as travel advice is to HGV drivers on the M80.
But if Corbyn can claim Labour are the party of common sense on Brexit, surely it makes common sense to be part of the single market too, as Nicola Sturgeon pointed out. If there is electoral advantage for Corbyn in finding he has heart to Remain, it is in peeling some left wing votes away from the only Remain party on the block, the SNP.
That might not be true in Coventry though – all three of the city’s Labourheld constituencies had Leave majorities. Apart from that balancing act, Corbyn’s inherent Euroscepticism stems from fears that single market rules would clash with his plans for state aid to ailing industries.
The EU state aid rules, as communities on the west coast bitterly learned during the attempt to privatise CalMac ferries, are what each government makes them. First we were told the ferry routes had to be sold off because of EU state aid rules and then, when that was electorally indigestible, the Government discovered the state aid rules need not apply. If only they had asked properly in the first place.
As May moves inexorably towards the hard Brexit of the Tory right that abandons the single market, the customs union and the European court of justice, Corbyn could make an offer that commands a majority in Parliament and, who knows, the country too. History is waiting for him. Corbyn needs to take himself to a quiet corner of Coventry Cathedral and have another pragmatic look into his own heart.