What the commentators said

Jeremy Corbyn is a “career-long Eurosceptic”, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. But he’s also happy to “do pragmatism” when circumstances demand. As they now do: a “gargantuan slab of legislation” – the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill – awaits MPS when they return to Parliament this month, and Corbyn knows only too well that he can only challenge the Government successfully if Labour can offer a popular, coherent policy of its own. That’s why he’s ready to dump his prior verbal commitment to quit the single market. Switching tactics makes good electoral sense too, said Denis Macshane in The Independent. One recent poll suggested that huge numbers of voters opted for Labour at the last election because they didn’t like the Tories’ hard line on Brexit. In any case, Corbyn urgently needs to distinguish his position on Brexit from that of the Conservatives. With the conference season just weeks away, he must be able to tell TUC and Labour delegates that he “incarnates anti-tory policy”.

Still, Corbyn can expect plenty of opposition from his own side, said Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. The millions of Labour voters who supported Brexit have been spectacularly betrayed by his “U-turn” and support for continued immigration. In backing the single market, the “ageing revolutionary” has aligned himself with the Bank of England, the civil service, the CBI and other Establishment bodies that would like nothing better than to see Brexit junked altogether. At last, the Government is now taking a more realistic position on a transition deal, said William Hague in The Daily Telegraph. But the path towards a final pact with the EU is still far from clear. Tricky issues are now arising that can only be settled between heads of state, yet those same heads of state insist on referring them to chief negotiator Barnier, who in turn claims his hands are tied by the negotiating mandate set by the member states. It’s a “circular way of negotiating” that allows them to be “as obstructive as they wish without seeming to be”.