Old Corbyn chuntered on glumly in the drizzle
TO A damp patch of grass near London’s Waterloo Station for the launch of Labour’s ‘In’ campaign battle bus. As buses go, it was on the small side, with sprayed windows to prevent the outside world peering inside. A little like the European Commission, you could say.
Labour MP Alan Johnson disclosed that the bus was going to be his home for the next six weeks while he toured the provinces, spreading the word for Brussels.
It was raining. Mr Johnson, who would later accuse some Leave supporters of being ‘extreme’, had a silent handmaiden holding an umbrella over him. Jeremy Corbyn was offered no such protection and he was getting wet, as was a script in his hands. Soon the paper was curling under the rain.
Mr Johnson gave a short, extempore speech; ditto Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson (who accused me of holding a Ukip brolly – oi, it was in fact a Prayer Book Society brolly!).
About 30 T-shirted teenagers were standing nearby, stoical in the downpour. Everyone wanted the event to end quickly but Mr Corbyn, like the late Magnus Magnusson, is not a man to be rushed once he has started.
On he chuntered, glum in tone, sucking on that prominent upper front tooth as though it were a Glacier mint. The Labour leader could not quite disguise the fact that until recently he was an ardent Eurosceptic. As he read through his text one gained a sense of grim determination but little enthusiasm.
During this speech a lorry started to manoeuvre out of a nearby goods bay, emitting a ‘beep beep beep’ as it reversed. It was as eloquent a comment as any we could offer. As Mr Corbyn concluded his remarks, a couple of workmen booed over the fence. Minutes later Iain Duncan Smith also accused Mr Corbyn of failing to speak up for the low-paid. IDS was giving the daily sermon – as one is starting to think of it – at Vote Leave’s low-ceilinged HQ near Lambeth Palace. Every day someone gives us a chunky, statistic- rich speech about why Brexit is a sound idea. These homilies may be good for us but so, allegedly, is cod liver oil.
Mr Duncan Smith pleaded with ‘better-off Britons’ to vote Leave in order to help their less prosperous fellow countrymen. Altruists of England, vote Leave. For the next 45 minutes he argued that although the EU has made the rich richer, it has been rotten for those at ‘the back of the queue’ (the echo of President Obama was intentional).
Who had done well out of Brussels? ‘Wealthy Germans… big banks… big corporates… public affairs companies with large lobbying operations in Brussels,’ said IDS. By that last one he may have meant Roland Rudd, a Remain campaign schmoozer and brother of the Energy Secretary.
WHO had done badly out of Brussels? ‘Lowerpaid Britons,’ said IDS, our champion of the poor. The main reason for this was immigration by young, unmarried workers prepared to do unskilled jobs for grotty pay. This was stiffing British workers who had families to support.
All his political career, IDS has been gripped by Europe. As a new MP he rebelled against John Major on Maastricht. European anxiety brought him the Tory leadership. Now he may be within six weeks of the nation voting to leave ‘the dysfunctional, declining, high-unemployment EU’. This could be the climax of his life’s work.
His eyes burned pale blue. When asked if he was an ‘extremist’ (that Alan Johnson word), he flared with a sustained blast of proud indignation.
‘In what world is it extremist to want your democracy back?’ he thundered. There might well be tricky times ahead and we would deal with them better as an independent nation rather than having to compromise with 27 other countries.
In terms simply of delivery, of intensity of belief, IDS was the real deal yesterday while Jeremy Corbyn had all the persuasive force of a hostage speaking words handed to him by his captors.