CORBYN PUTS PARTY BEFORE INTEGRITY AND COUNTRY

FOR once Labour’s beleaguered moderate MPs are looking forward to a Jeremy Corbyn speech. The hard-Left Labour leader, whose dogma-drenched rants are usually grating beyond endurance to anyone outside his fan club, is due to make an address on Monday that will at last make clear his vision for Brexit. Pro-Brussels MPs on the party’s soft-Left wing are anticipating a “seismic” shift towards their way of thinking.

Mr Corbyn is an old-fashioned socialist and long-standing Eurosceptic in the Tony Benn tradition who sees Brussels as the centre of a sinister capitalist club. Yet Labour insiders expect him to commit his party to a so-called “soft” Brexit keeping Britain locked in an EU customs union. It is expected to be a rare U-turn for a politician who has refused to change his mind on virtually anything since the 1970s.

But the moderates may be celebrating a little too early. The Labour leader has a record of failing to articulate policy ideas briefed in advance by his aides when he actually comes to speak. And on Europe at least the Labour leader is always ready to put pragmatism ahead of principle.

Mr Corbyn’s approach to European policy echoes that of his predecessor Harold Wilson. Wilson constantly kept his colleagues guessing over his attitude to British membership of the Common Market in an attempt at keeping his feud-riven party from splitting apart. A few years after his retirement Labour did fracture with European policy as one of the key dividing lines.

Mr Corbyn’s EU policy is similarly tactical and prone to shift according to circumstance. With the Left hankering for power his overriding aim is causing maximum damage to the Tories in Commons votes in the hope of toppling Theresa May. What is best for the country in its future relations with Brussels will not form part of the calculation.

Plenty more about-turns on Europe can be expected from Mr Corbyn and his scheming aides. Labour moderates are mistaken if they think his big speech on Monday will be his final word.