Sherelle Jacobs:
Letting Brexit take place under Mrs May would give Corbyn the ammunition he needs to win an election
The mangled attempt at a revolt against Theresa May that really matters this week is not the one that everyone was talking about. If the ruddy-cheeked, flap-and-flailings of the ERG were redolent of a Dad’s Army platoon, then Labour’s failure on Monday to team up with the DUP against the PM had the conniving amateurism of a Blackadder sketch.
It beggars belief that Labour failed to defeat a crucial amendment to the Finance Bill by five ballots, even though the DUP reportedly briefed them that they would mobilise against the PM. Even curiouser, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t turn up to the vote.
Why would Labour go out of its way to avoid landing a punch on the Government? One theory is almost too devious to countenance. Suppose that, for all the party’s heckling for a “People’s Vote”, its leaders are plotting to ensure a Tory Brexit happens?
A quick recap: the dominant narrative on the Left and Brexit is that, with the party’s grassroots salivating for a second referendum, Labour MPS will vote down Mrs May’s proposal, then block a no deal, and call a vote of confidence. After winning the latter, Mr Corbyn could force an election; the people would then deliver a stinging slap to the Tories, and Labour would win by default. The only problem with this theory is that everybody believes in it except Labour itself.
The Opposition knows it is a leap to think that anger at the Tories alone is enough to propel them into No 10. Especially as the marginals that Labour needs to win – from Copeland in the North to Crawley in the South – voted Leave. The citizens in these places are strident about “taking back control” on immigration, and feel culturally cut off from the metropolitan Marxists that have colonised the Left. Mr Corbyn’s camp is petrified that if the party is seen to stop Brexit, its final crumbs of credibility in such places would be blown away in the furious backlash.
Labour also knows that if it has to fight an election before a Brexit deal has been passed, it could end up consuming all its energy trying to stave off civil war, rather than actually campaigning. The pressure to promise a second referendum in Labour’s manifesto would be overwhelming. But with six in 10 Labour MPS presiding over Leave-voting constituencies, many might flout the official line or stand as independents. Added to this, Jeremy Corbyn and John Mcdonnell are now the Victor Frankensteins of British politics. They live in paranoia that the monster they have created – a roughly stitched mongrel of millennial militancy and Eighties Trotskyism, permanently hard wired to lean to the extreme Left – will show no mercy; it will boot them out in favour of younger professional protesters if they lose another election.
The stakes are therefore high, and a Brexit suits Mr Corbyn best. True, he is rallying MPS to vote down the PM’S deal. But arguably he has no choice – not trashing it would look bizarre, given how it tanked with Brexiteers. It is also likely that Tory whips will now make a final-ditch attempt at courting Labour Remainer MPS in Leave seats (of which there are around 140), many of whom are tetchy about how Brexit divides them from their constituents, and just want it all over with. Mrs May’s trump card to persuade them might be that the deal “delivers on immigration”. If enough Labour MPS do grudgingly back her last-minute, would Mr Corbyn really intervene?
Labour may well also let a no deal happen, should the PM fail. This could mean opposing it officially but tacitly allowing MPS in Leaver constituencies to either abstain on, or support, no deal legislation. Perhaps 20 might do so, based on the number of Opposition MPS Tory sources had been briefing as backing the PM, before her final proposal landed in Westminster. True some of these, like Stoke-on-trent MP Gareth Snell, say a Labour deal is preferable to a no deal. But as his side’s own proposal is a blancmange of self-contradictions that Michel Barnier would relish throwing back in Labour’s face, he may yet change his mind.
With Britain out of the EU, whether that be via Mrs May’s deal or no deal, the People’s Vote campaign would run of steam, avoiding a Left-wing split on Brexit. Labour could then focus on hammering home that the Tories have wrecked the economy by botching the EU negotiations. Mr Mcdonnell wants to box the Tories into a narrative that would cripple their credibility for a generation, as George Osborne did to the Left after the credit crunch. He’s even stolen the former Chancellor’s catchphrase, with his incessant talk of “inheriting the Tories’ mess”.
Mr Mcdonnell needs more time to polish his pitch for reforming capitalism, too. Although policy wonks have been groping around the concept of a “green jobs revolution”, Labour still feels like a red army scouring socialism’s intellectual wastelands in search of a modern idea. And they badly need one to distract voters from their unease about Mr Corbyn.
We can thus expect more ducking and dithering from Labour HQ in coming weeks. The ensuing chaos may present several opportunities to bring down the Government, but Opposition leaders know they only have one chance to get it right. FOLLOW Sherelle Jacobs on Twitter @Sherelle_e_j; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion