Corbyn helps to get PM off to a flying start
Labour policy is in chaos over Trident renewal, the Union and post-Brexit relations with the EU
The Labour Party is about to prove that Newton’s Third Law – that every action has an equal and opposite reaction – applies as much to politics as it does to physics.
Received wisdom until now has been that by moving sharply to the Left or Right, either of Britain’s two main parties can shift the centre ground in their direction in the process.
In other words, after nearly a year of Jeremy Corbyn, some of Ed Miliband’s sillier notions like the mansion tax or the freeze on energy prices, should start to look distinctly sensible and centrist.
In fact, the opposite has happened. The more energetically Labour kicks against the centre ground, the further away it becomes.
That Theresa May will take advantage of Labour’s current woes isn’t in doubt; it’s how she will do so that matters. Will the new Prime Minister park her tanks on what was once Labour’s lawn: the sensible, centre ground? Or will she “do a Thatcher” and take advantage of Labour’s irrelevance to pursue an unashamedly Right-wing agenda?
As a Labour Party member (for the moment) I’m in no position to second guess the Prime Minister, though I suspect she will do the right thing and tack towards the centre ground, even though she doesn’t need to.
Labour’s incompetence and apathy over three crucial issues have led us to a point where Mrs May is seen as a safer, more competent and reassuring national leader than anyone that Labour can offer.
Take yesterday’s vote in the Commons on the future of Trident. Most commentators will view Labour’s continuing tribulations with either amusement or resignation after the official Opposition decided not to impose a whip on its MPs.
On two other momentous and nation-defining issues – the Union between Scotland and the rest of the UK and our post-referendum relationship with the EU – Labour is just as confused, contradictory and directionless.
Scottish Labour fought the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections on a specific commitment not to support a second independence referendum. How was the leadership to know that a majority of Scots would vote one way while a majority of their UK compatriots voted another in the EU referendum?
OK, this scenario was explicitly discussed in the SNP manifesto and endlessly in the media for months, but how were they to know? As the only party in Scotland to have been taken completely by surprise at the result, Scottish Labour is now backtracking. “All options are on the table” has become the cross-party mantra at Holyrood.
This at least makes it a rare issue on which Mr Corbyn is in tune with his party: neither having a strong opinion on a second independence referendum for Scotland. But what about the EU? What are his, or his party’s views on the Brexit negotiations? On the possibility of a second referendum?
Meanwhile, having made an explicit and energetic defence of our “precious, precious Union,” and followed through by making her first official visit as Prime Minister to Edinburgh, Mrs May has now made clear that the result of the EU referendum will be honoured. No ifs, no buts, no prevarication. Barely three weeks ago the Conservative Party was in upheaval. It looked as though decades of “banging on about Europe” might have dealt it a fatal blow.
Yet in what felt like a heartbeat, the leadership contenders fell by the wayside, the former home secretary was crowned and that most joyful and sacred celebration of western democracy – the peaceful transition of power – took place.
No surprise, then, that a ComRes poll over the weekend suggested that while 58 per cent of voters believed Mrs May will make a good Prime Minister, only 19 per cent felt the same way about Mr Corbyn. This is probably overstating voters’ opinions of Mr Corbyn, but nevertheless, it’s a good start for Mrs May. Such a lead is hardly surprising and is well deserved, given her approach to these three vital issues on which Labour has so much difficulty even expressing a view.
I remain, as I have been for 32 years, a member of the Labour Party. But had I been invited to take part in that poll, I would have been one of the 58 per cent. I suspect strongly that a significant number of “centre ground” voters feel exactly the same way. If such voters feel that the Conservatives are making an effort to move towards them, the future is very bright indeed for Mrs May.