CORBYN WANTED TO LOSE
CRAIG OLIVER’S book shows how bitter personal and political divisions in Labour hampered the Remain campaign. He says Jeremy Corbyn’s office was like a ‘mad house’; Peter Mandelson angrily opposed the decision to halt campaigning for several days after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox; and Gordon Brown refused point blank to appear alongside David Cameron, John Major and Tony Blair in a pro-EU act of solidarity.
MONDAY, APRIL 4
IT'S becoming clear that what we thought was our great strength – Labour agreeing with us that we should stay in – is in fact a weakness. Jeremy Corbyn's office is at best equivocal – and sometimes appears actively hostile. Days are left open for them to take the lead – but they are invariably damp squibs. It's not clear they really want Cameron to succeed.
Stronger In tell me that Alan Johnson, leader of the Labour In campaign, isn't doing morning media because he isn't being taken by Radio 4's Today. ITV's Good Morning Britain was prepared to send a satellite truck to his house but he pulled out around 8pm last night. I'm told he said: ‘There's no point in doing media for the sake of it.' My gut is there's a grain of vanity in this. Politicians want to know their peer group sees or hears them – none of them watch the ITV breakfast show.
We desperately need Labour to do more. Corbyn offers excruciating and baffling soundbites. Lynton Crosby's right-hand man, Mark Textor, refers to Corbyn as ‘an international superstar of f***wittery'. John McDonnell needs to stop slagging us off. To us, Corbyn's office resembles a madhouse where the patients have taken over the asylum.
Later that month there's a meeting in George Osborne's office with Peter Mandelson, who arrives clutching a bottle of water in one hand and his smartphone, with white headphones dragging along the floor, in the other. He asks: ‘Why do you all insist on bringing a spoon to a knife fight? It's clear Boris and [Michael] Gove need to be taken out by big Tory hitters.'
In June it emerges that Gordon Brown wants to do more but has a series of grudges, apparently saying: ‘They've stabbed me in the back before.'
He was furious that a day he was supposed to be leading ended with George warning that house prices would fall and taking the news.
FRIDAY, JUNE 17 DAY AFTER JO COX MURDER
DC talks to Brown on the phone. He wants to persuade him to do an event involving both of them, Tony Blair and John Major. Gordon isn't up for it. DC says he thinks we need a ‘shock factor' for the undecideds, and what better way than all four surviving PMs appearing together. ‘We had the shock factor yesterday,' says Gordon. Later, I get a call from an irritable Mandelson. ‘Who agreed that there should be no campaigning this week?' [Campaigning was been suspended in the wake of Jo Cox's murder]. I tell him there was an agreement between Tom Watson and Downing Street.
Mandelson says: ‘You have been taken for an enormous ride. The Labour leadership never wanted to campaign. Now they have the perfect excuse not to do anything. I am furious! Corbyn and Watson want us to lose this referendum. Everyone needs to wake up.'
The next morning I wake up to a stark message from Mandelson: ‘We are headed for disaster.'
SUNDAY, JUNE 19
Corbyn on Andrew Marr is utterly hopeless as far as persuading people to vote Remain. Alastair Campbell texts me: ‘Jesus God almighty...'
After the referendum there is a Remain board meeting to consider what went wrong.
I say that our reading of the polling was that the economy would trump immigration. It didn't.
Mandelson spins to me and says: ‘That is a heck of a statement – saying our polling was completely wrong.'
‘I didn't say that,' I point out, but Mandelson has his attack sorted.
He intimates he is blameless and concludes: ‘There was an exclusive, not an inclusive discussion at No10.' It's not even coded – David Cameron and George Osborne should have turned to Mandelson. They didn't and now everyone is paying a very heavy price.
My hackles rise. I say that I could play a blame game too, saying Labour was useless and he and others completely failed to exert any influence on them.
Why do you insist on bringing a spoon to a knife fight...Boris and Gove need taking out by big hitters