Leader mumbles and meanders as Labour squirms over Brexit policy

The opinion polls look clear. On May 23, the European elections will be a fight between Nigel Farage’s lot and Jeremy Corbyn’s lot. Or to put it another way: the Brexit Party versus the Please Don’t Mention Brexit Party.

Yesterday, at the University of Kent, Mr Corbyn launched Labour’s European election campaign. Short of sharing a tub of chicken Mcnuggets with Tony Blair at a royal wedding street party, he looked as if he’d rather have been doing pretty much anything else. It’s not that he opposes Brexit. It’s just that, quite plainly, he isn’t very interested.

I’ve seen Mr Corbyn give speeches about things he actually cares about. I’ve seen him at rallies, feverish with indignation, barking into loudhailers about austerity and inequality, and the countless evils of the Tories. What he’s saying may be incoherent, hackneyed, misguided – but you can at least be sure he means it.

Compare that with his speech about Brexit yesterday: 15 weary minutes of meandering, murmuring monotony. Mumble, mumble. Mumble, mumble. He sounded as if he was talking in his sleep. Standing beside him at the lectern was one of his party’s election candidates. I wasn’t quite sure why she was there. Perhaps to give him a poke if he started snoring.

So reluctant was Mr Corbyn to talk about Brexit that he kept veering off into other subjects altogether: climate change, taxation, race (“Labour will stand up for all workers, black and white”). At one point, after the speech, a supporter asked him how he would “improve the lives of children” – and immediately, Mr Corbyn sprang to life, and spoke with earnest animation. “All children must get the opportunity to learn a musical instrument!” he cried.

School music lessons, of course, have precisely nothing to do with the European elections: the EU has not ruled that every child under 10 must learn Ode to Joy on the recorder, nor has it produced some mad diktat requiring the triangle to have four sides. Mr Corbyn was simply grateful – almost desperately grateful – to speak about something other than Brexit.

Tragically, however, he has to speak about Brexit. His problem is that, although he’s repeatedly said that Brexit must happen, most Labour supporters don’t actually want it. Hence the squirming contortions of Labour policy.

“If we can’t get a sensible deal along the lines of our alternative plan, or a general election,” mumbled Mr Corbyn yesterday, “then Labour backs the option of a public vote.”

His supporters cheered and whooped. In their excitement, they perhaps hadn’t noted the mealymouthed way this pledge was phrased. Mr Corbyn hadn’t promised to demand a public vote; he’d merely promised to keep open the “option” of demanding it. Which means he would also keep open the option of not demanding it.

Labour: not a party of leaving, or a party of remaining – but a party of hovering shiftily by the door.