Fudging the issue won’t sugar bitter pill of Brexit

There are plenty in the Labour Party who will give two fingers to John McDonnell’s pledge that Brexit will be fixed with a fudge.

McDonnell, not a man noted for his commitment to compromise, believes there will be a solution loved by few but acceptable to the vast majority.

His comments in an exclusive Sunday Mail interview appear to be fuelled more by hope than certainty.

The Shadow Chancellor is constrained by the fact that Labour continue to walk a tightrope over the issue.

And he’ll be mindful, as he takes to the stage in Dundee’s Caird Hall today, that he is speaking in the UK’s Remainer heartlands.

No party do ideological splits quite like Labour.

Former leader Kezia Dugdale has already f o rmed her ow n spl int er g roup ScottishLabour for the Single Market, quickly sinking any notion that she might want to keep her head down after I’m A Celeb-gate.

If Dugdale had been suspended from the part y last year for abandoning her constituents in favour of the quick money-making reality TV scheme, she could have had few complaints.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard may now be regretting not having done so at least as an act of political expediency.

As the arguments at the Caird Hall continued to rage, and they got particularly awkward when MEP Catherine Stihler clashed with Ian Davidson at a fringe meeting, it was easy to identify one particular beneficiary.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stands in a highly unusual position in British politics right now.

Unlike Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Leonard, Ruth Davidson, Arlene Foster and most others, Brexit isn’t the biggest thing on her plate. As far as her support are concerned, it sits a very distant second behind the main issue of Scottish independence.

Therefore, anything Sturgeon does or says on Brexit can be seen through the prism of working towards this wider goal.

She also holds considerably more power than Labour with a Scottish Government veto sitting in her back pocket.

The SNP and their core support must be delighted at what Brexit is doing to Labour.

The party lurch from sounding like a Ukip tribute act to squalid internal row.

At all points in between, there is only discord and uncertainty.

Sturgeon can quietly play a waiting game for as long this fiasco continues to cripple political discourse in this country.

Whatever McDonnell might hope, it’s more of a marathon than a fudge.

The SNP and their core support must be delighted at what Brexit is doing to Labour