If Labour MPS showed conviction, the public might listen

What are we to make of the Labour Party’s current position on Brexit, specifically its attitude towards demands from many of its own members for a second EU referendum? Labour’s biggest paymaster, Len “Broken Clock” Mccluskey, has made his views known to MPS by telling them privately that voters would see a second referendum as a betrayal.

This complicates things for a great many Labour MPS. Although it may appear that they have a greater grasp of the details of Brexit than most voters, and are carefully weighing up the political and economic consequences of next week’s vote on Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, appearances can be deceptive.

Just like you or me, they want Brexit over with and just like you and me, they are confused and rattled by some of the scenarios hoving into view.

Our politicians are expected to take principled and firm decisions on every issue under the sun, and in this respect they normally earn their salaries.

But on Brexit, a whole range of positions has been adopted within Labour, not because they are founded on principle, but because the party needs to appear to have something to say that is different from what the Government is saying. So it is that Labour MPS will vote against Mrs May’s deal, even though the difference between it and the hypothetical alternative agreement that Labour would negotiate with the EU is not obvious. Just repeat “jobs-first Brexit” until the camera gets switched off.

Despite Mr Mccluskey’s warnings, and the Labour leadership’s own ambivalence on the subject, far more Labour MPS than Conservative ones support a second EU referendum. This is partly to do with the fact that pro-eu sentiment is the norm in Labour.

But another referendum is much more than just a mechanism for reversing the result of the 2016 vote: it is a lifeline that many MPS hope will rescue them from the threat of deselection by Jeremy Corbyn supporters. Essentially, Labour MPS are waiting to be told what to do by the public. If another referendum happens, then they can pledge, without fear of criticism, to cast their own judgment aside and honour the result, whether that is in favour of remaining in the EU, adopting Mrs May’s deal or even leaving on World Trade Organisation rules. How could any MP who might be seen as a critic of the leadership be criticised by Momentum and sundry far-leftists for voting according to the will of the people?

Meanwhile, they are reluctant to rescue Mrs May’s deal because this would mean missing the opportunity to remove the Government.

Last week the leader of the Remain campaign, Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary, said he could see little wrong with the deal; Ian Austin, the Dudley MP and regular Corbyn critic, has said something similar. But the only response from Labour’s grassroots is “Evil Tories!” No Labour MP who supports Mrs May’s deal will be given a fair hearing by their local activists when they try to claim that their vote was in the country’s best interests. This is not what members want to hear, and neither is “the country’s best interests” their own priority, beyond a partisan faith that a Labour government will make everything all right.

Are MPS representatives or delegates? Almost unanimously, they will claim to be the former, but in matters Brexit, they yearn to be told what to do. They want to be let off the hook. It is staggering how many Labour MPS will speak passionately about the need for a second referendum without once giving any hint about their own preferred outcome, other than the usual pro forma criticism of Mrs May’s deal and the state of the Government. Labour’s mediocre performance in most polls can be attributed to Jeremy Corbyn. But it’s likely that at least some of it is now down to mainstream Labour MPS who have spent years declaiming Corbyn’s lack of leadership, but who now expose their own lack of political conviction beyond their newfound faith in referendums.

The final deal we reach with the EU is far more important than the future electability of the Labour Party, and it is more important than the popularity of any Labour MP among their local members. Who knows? Perhaps if Labour MPS started showing some leadership, some conviction, if they actually started offering hard and fast opinions about the nitty gritty of the deal, the public might start to listen. Voters might even start remembering that once, long ago, they used to look to their MPS for leadership.

Tom Harris is a former Labour MP