Corbyn’s blindness to reality of Brexit

The most radical of Labour leaders seems unwilling to take on the ideologues of the Tory right

There is a curious disconnect between the members of the Labour Party and its current leadership.

Among the influx of new recruits who signed up to support the leadership campaign of Jeremy Corbyn, there is strong opposition to Brexit. Yet Mr Corbyn remains reluctant to make the argument against the government’s plans for the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU.

Even as the case that Brexit will represent an act of national selfharm grows stronger, he sticks to his line that Labour stands for the best possible Brexit.

Perhaps, given that he has spent most of his career as a Eurosceptic, we should not be surprised by Mr Corbyn’s ambivalent stance over Brexit but those who support him in the belief that Labour is best placed to oppose the government on this issue have, we think, the right to feel aggrieved.

Rather than seizing the opportunity to drill down on the government’s chaotic Brexit plans, Mr Corbyn is launching a four-day tour of Scotland to promote a postbrexit “built in Britain” message.

The fact that almost two-thirds of Scots voted to remain in the EU appears not to have occurred to Mr Corbyn, who reckons he can persuade voters that, under Labour’s guidance, Brexit would succeed.

The Leader of the Opposition will deliver the first speech of his whistle-stop tour at the headquarters of Alexander Dennis, the Falkirk bus-maker, which cautioned in June that a hard Brexit would hold back its growth.

But rather than taking up the fight on behalf of employees at Alexander Dennis and other companies which stand to be damaged by Brexit, Mr Corbyn will promise a Labour government would “reprogramme the economy” and “deliver an industrial renaissance for Scotland”.

Almost half of voters in the United Kingdom voted to remain the EU and recent polls suggest many who supported Leave have changed their minds as the implications of Brexit become clearer. Yet these people – many of whom support Labour – have few politicians willing to speak up for them.

How strange it is that the most radical Labour Party in living memory seems incapable of taking on the most ideologicallydriven, right-wing Conservative government we have seen in decades.