Why fence-sitter Jez may be sitting pretty

Jeremy Corbyn can’t win, except when it comes to the not-so-minor matter of the forthcoming General Election, in which he looks more and more likely to emerge as PM.

The Labour Party, in both Parliament and the country, is almost as split as the Tories over Brexit.

Whichever way Jeremy jumps means either being sauteed in the frying pan or barbecued over the fire.

But in this worst of all possible worlds, the Labour leader has landed on the one planet that might sustain intelligent life, with a Brexit position which at last makes sense.

As I’m a Remainer who wishes to honour the 2016 referendum result, it’s pretty much identical to mine. If we can’t stay in the EU, I want us in a customs union with as much single market access as possible.

That solves the Irish border stalemate by making the wretched backstop unnecessary, and causes the mildest of economic earthquakes.

It’s like a 2 on the Richter scale – equivalent to 600kg of dynamite – when you get a bit shaken around. Boris Johnson’s no-deal is an 8 magnitude, 60 billion kilogram whopper – the sort that in 1906 flattened San Francisco.

JC would hold a General Election with the promise of negotiating his new deal, followed by a referendum in which there is an option to remain. Corbyn would stay above the fray and let the people decide.

It’s a formula which might just get him across the tightrope spanning diehard Labour Brexiteers and hopeful Remainers without falling off.

But it’s a highwire act which puts him at odds with his deputy Tom Watson. Then again, when are the feuding duo not at odds these days? Tom wants this done the other way round – referendum first, election later, Labour to unequivocally campaign for remain.

There is some merit in this. Do it Jeremy’s way and it’s a Brexit election and Labour’s other policies on social justice, tax reform and nationalisation won’t get a look-in. The Watson manoeuvre means Brexit gets done and dusted so Labour can showcase its very British brand of socialist revolution without scaring the horses.

Expect these contradictory standpoints to light the fuse for Brighton party conference fireworks this week. I still have reservations about a second referendum. It could further split an already divided nation.

But even No10 now accepts this is the direction of travel – which it will try to resist.

The row between Labour’s leader and his deputy is finely balanced.

But in this spat I come down on the side of the boss as the one most likely to deliver an election-winner by staying out of both the frying pan and the fire.

He’d stay out of fray and leave the people to decide David Cameron used his memoirs to explain his weird humming as he walked back into No10 after delivering his 2016 resignation speech on losing the EU referendum. He says he feared the famous black door wouldn’t open. Uh-huh. And how many doors do you open, Dave, by humming at them?