Chris Leslie and Elitist Politics

In her Newsnight interview with Kirsty Wark, Anna Soubry batted away questions about the politics of the newly-minted Independent Group by saying this was "something new". As this could not pertain to the tired return of warmed over Blairism (with a full-throated shout out for George Osborne, in Soubz's case), it must be something specific to TIG itself. Plenty of people have noted this is not a political party but a corporate entity owned by Gemini A, a company owned by TInG nobody and anti-gay bigot, Gavin Shuker. Normally it's the height of Commons manners to be discreet about one's relationship to a private company, so I suppose that's new.

Another innovation came in George Eaton's interview with Chris Leslie. Amid the guff and nonsense, none of which we haven't seen before, this wee gem was put forward in response to being quizzed on party leadership: "Everybody has genuflected to membership, but that membership is a tiny fraction of the public at large ... MPs have to, by the nature of our constitution, have confidence in their leader." Therefore MPs should have the final say on who gets to be the leader of their party. Can you imagine his envy when Andrea Leadsom withdrew her ill-fated 2016 leadership bid when it became clear Theresa May had the backing of most Conservative MPs? It's not entirely surprising then how ordinary people cannot join Leslie's outfit - though their money is good enough.

But I want to focus a little on Leslie himself. The notion that social being conditions consciousness should be a banal truism when it comes to the analysis of politics, but it's not. And this is for good reasons where mainstream commentary is concerned. Rather than parties being the means by which interests are articulated and represented, they are free-floating coalitions of ideas. MPs sat in Westminster with their salaries, status and a cushion of office bods who do the donkey work for them can subscribe to this fiction, this illusio (as Bourdieu put it) of the political field because most of them are from similar backgrounds, have a similar outlook, the same salaries, conditions of work, respect for parliamentary conventions, and so on. For them, this is politics. The constituency association or party, having to deal with beastly members' meetings, committing to local council election efforts, that's not proper politics: it's a distraction.

Leslie's contempt for members' participation in the affairs of their party makes sense in this context. But additionally, he's something of a special case. Like his equally useless compadre, Mike Gapes, the Labour Party has provided him a good living virtually all his adult life. Fresh from his Masters degree at Leeds University he moved into a political research job in 1996 before getting selected for Shipley in 1997 at the tender age of 24. There he was a loyal MP and something of a Gordon Brown protege until getting dumped out of office at the 2005 general election by noted Tory misogynist Philip Davies. He was then gifted the directorship of the New Local Government Network following his defenestration, and headed Brown's leadership campaign from behind the scenes. He was then selected to fight Nottingham East in 2010 and has sat in Parliament ever since.

It's worth focusing in on that Nottingham East selection. Long-term readers might remember shortly after joining Labour in February 2010, the seat in which I live, Stoke Central, was subjected to a stitch-up. The NEC (in reality, the then regional director) drew up a shortlist comprised of Tristram Hunt and two no-hopers and trusted the local membership to select the right candidate. Alas, local party members in Nottingham East weren't even afforded that luxury. The then sitting MP, John Heppell, resigned late before the general election and so the selection of a replacement came under the purview of the NEC's Special Selection Panel. A long list was drawn up and was put to the five-person panel and, what do you know, Leslie was awarded the seat for services rendered. To understand why Nottingham East no confidenced him and have loudly complained about his neglect of the constituency, the circumstances of his imposition on the CLP is the necessary context to take into consideration. For a large chunk of the membership, the legitimacy of his claim to the seat has always been suspect and contested.

Leslie then epitomises the trends Peter Mair wrote about in Ruling the Void, of a party elite distant from and indifferent to what's happening in the real world. And we can see why. For most of Leslie's political career, elites at the top of parties have used bureaucracy, dirty tricks and all manner of manipulation to keep themselves in place and insulated from outside pressures. For the likes of Leslie, ordinary people getting involved in politics, having a say, expecting politicians to answer their questions and, ultimately, being accountable to them is as much an aberration as it is an abomination. This is politics as less an elite and more an elitist activity, one they shouldn't be ashamed of, and why it is no accident The Independent Group was set up as project for MPs only. Not that this should unduly worry anyone. As they will find out soon enough, if they can't be bothered to orient themselves to a mass constituency outside of Westminster, then people outside of their bubble, even those who might be favourably disposed to them, aren't going to be bothered with them either.

Is The Independent Group a Wind-Up?

Is The Independent Group a wind up? We'll pass over Luciana Berger fluffing her lines and introducing herself as the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree at the launch. TIG is incorporated as a private company to get around donation reporting rules for political parties. This move, which is without precedent as far as the party affiliation of sitting parliamentarians is concerned, is about preventing scrutiny of their finances. And this is one eschewed even by Farage's new party, an outfit and a project that has serious questions to answer about past finances. Not the best way then to break the mould of the old politics.

Fancy another? TIG is owned (sorry, "supported") by a shell company going by the name of Gemini A (website registered in Panama [edit: see comments]). Looks suspect, yes? It gets better. Not only is the business address a Wetherspoon's in Altrincham, a curious choice for an explicitly anti-Brexit "party", said pub trades under The Unicorn. You couldn't make it up.

They also thought it would be a good idea to poach a Tory, and so approached Ruth Davidson to be their leader. Having a sense of self-preservation and half a brain, she turned down their kind offer. But still, Soubz is there waiting in the wings. She's already removed all mention of being a Tory MP from her Twitter bio in preparation for the jump.

And it would be remiss to forget Angela Smith's appearance on Politics Live where she did a racism. Lest we forget.

But you know what truly damns this clowns' car of an ego vehicle? It's the total lack of seriousness. They have learned nothing, nothing since 2015. Like the ill-fated Corbyn coup, no ground has been prepared in the wider party. This is a gaggle of minor-to-anonymous parliamentary personages with no backing apart from shy rich people and naff celebrities. They didn't try and win over other party members, let alone appeal to those who have left Labour. No work was done to reach out to the affiliated organisations or to try and get councillors on board. In other words, the most basic organising, the 101 of launching a new party, has been set aside. Why? Incompetence is part of the story, but it's in equal part the arrogance that comes with launching an elite political project. The truth is you, me, the little people don't matter. Politics is a plaything for MPs, Lords and Ladies, and the money bags who can buy their way in. Us? We're just voting fodder at best, and the people who politics is done to the rest of the time. We don't understand, we don't get it, and we definitely should have no role to play in a political party above the station of envelope stuffing and leafleting.

This is what their split is about. It's no accident this comes after three of them got no confidence votes by the constituency parties, that similar moves were being made by another, and that Chuka Umunna's local party voted to move away from delegate-based to all-member meetings. Democracy is only okay if it leaves them unchallenged and gifts them a job for life. 

Let's be honest. The Labour Party is well rid.

A New Centrist Party is Still a Stupid Idea

The tide flows in and out, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and discontented Labour MPs keep promising they're going to split off and launch a new party "soon". According to Toby Helm, one of The Observer's's biggest cheerleaders for this miserable Blairist project, discontent over Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn's foreign policy positioning are bringing them close to quitting. But hold on a moment, thanks to the benefit of having a memory aren't these always the reasons? So why now, what's new, how have things changed?

Continuing the fine tradition of the diminishing number of MPs said to be champing at the bit for a new party, Toby's exclusive puts the latest tally at six, which is down six on the proto-party talks alleged to have taken place last summer, and the 30-40, and 80-100 before then. Who are our dramatis personae on this occasion? There's Angela Smith, the MP who has curiously chosen the private ownership of water has her hill to die on. We have our mate Chris Leslie, or as I prefer him, vacuity in a suit. And, on this occasion, Luciana Berger's name is roped in. Hers has proven a career noteworthy in two respects - she's more famous for quitting the shadow role for mental health than anything she did with it, and her murky selection in 2010 thanks to knowing the right people over and above any discernible talent. Who could be the "three others" on the verge of quitting? Mike Gapes has recently been straining to get in the news, so one shouldn't rule him out. With gravitas like this on their side, how could they not succeed?

Well, they are going to fail and hard if they ever have the guts to follow through their tiresome threats. When these stories started circulating in the summer after the last general election, the conditions against a new party then still apply. There is zero name recognition for the people involved except perhaps, ho ho, Tony Blair. Apart from money, they have no leader, no activists, no profile with the wider public, and not even a pool of voters - despite their best efforts at trying to win one. Though, to be honest, whatever this gaggle of has beens and never weres decide to do they're doomed anyway. There's more of a chance of Donald Trump showing some humility than any of these getting adopted again by their constituency party as Labour candidates.

Why go through this tedious, rinse-and-repeat ritual of announcing their intentions? Just as matters have come to a head for Theresa May, so Brexit is forcing the petty scheming of the Blairists to a conclusion. This last week has shown there is no way to get their beloved (and undesirable) second referendum through the Commons. For all their disingenuous arguments like "how can more democracy be undemocratic?" (an point, we'll note, they never accept when it applies to the left's efforts at democratising the Labour Party), and the huge amount of money spent and unrivalled media access, they've succeeded in persuading absolutely none of their colleagues that a rerun is a good 'un. They've finally hit the brick wall of reality, and they think a new party - or at least the talk of one - will help scrape them off.

The other consideration is the infighting within continuity remain itself. From before the referendum until now it's been a top down, elite affair with the interests of British capital front and centre. Only someone who is a member of these exalted circles and moves exclusively within them could think putting forward Alastair Campbell as one of its main spox is a good idea. However, as Buzzfeed reported last month the campaign is falling prey to the centrifugal pressures rending at it. One faction want it to continue as an umbrella organisation determined to avoid Brexit, and they're at odds with the others for whom anti-Corbynism is the chief consideration. And in turn both are variously ill-disposed to the prima donna moving and shaking by Chuka Umunna who has long harboured his own vanity project. In other words, without really doing anything they've knackered themselves out.

What's left for them to do? Continuity remain was a hiding to nothing, and there is zero chance of them making a comeback in Labour. They had the opportunity to re-examine their politics and think about what they mean in the context of Labour offering a genuinely transformative programme, but for them to put the party first was asking too much. Besides, that's something to be expected of the little people but not mighty Westminster titans like themselves. They've mouthed off so many times without putting on the trousers, and because they have zero name recognition and no experience of organising bar ordering what to have for lunch, any new party would be a miserable, half-hearted and dismal effort. A fitting finis to their careers, don't you think?

John McDonnell in Stoke

As part of John McDonnell's tour under the theme of Transform Your Town, he and the shadow treasury team came to Stoke to listen to what we think our local problems and priorities are, as well as talk about Labour's plan for Britain and what strategies we thought were useful for tackling the city's problems. About a hundred people squeezed in to the Hope Centre in Hanley for a series of talks and workshops on our programme for the city and the country.

After Annalise Dodds kicked off proceedings, John pulled together some key stats about Stoke-on-Trent. The weekly wage in Stoke South constituency, which was originally going to host the event, currently stands at £478, as compared to the UK average of £550 and London's £650. 5.5% are registered unemployed, 10,435 people are in the process of being moved on to Universal Credit, 764 people have to cope with the bedroom tax, and 17,938 pensioners benefit from the protections afforded by the triple lock - a measure Labour is committed to keep. In the city as a whole, 30.4% children live in households in poverty and last year, Stoke's fifteen food banks gave out 111,946 supplies. Additionally, 13.8% of city households are classed as living in fuel poverty, and the City Council's spending power has fallen by 27.5%. Public services have similarly suffered. There are 129 unqualified teachers in Stoke's classrooms while 3,465 schoolchildren sit in classes of 30 or over. Staffordshire Police have lost 556 officers while robberies are up 27% and violent crime has increased seven per cent. 19% of patients in the Stoke Clinical Commissioning Group area have to wait more than a week to see a nurse or a GP, and overall public spending stands at £8,969/head - compared to £10,323 for London.

Gareth Snell, our MP for Stoke Central, came next. He said that behind the numbers is a Tory attempt to tear at the social fabric that was built up by previous Labour governments and local authorities. Nationally the Tories take money from deprived communities, and locally the Tory-led council have cut services to the most vulnerable - homelessness services, and drugs and alcohol recovery - to fund their priorities. And yet, despite Stoke's problems, the city is rich in social capital. Despite the Tories undermining of city infrastructure and making a bad situation worse, communities have kept together and look out for each other, and beginning with Labour taking back control of the council in May both are a good basis from which to transform the city.

Mark McDonald, Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Stoke South said that since he'd moved to the city, he was struck by the pride people had in the place and its heritage. But it was being neglected by its council. He noted the old Woolworth's in Longton and many other abandoned buildings in the town - an indictment of a city council (ironically) determined to coral all investment into the city centre. Encountering a young family at a local food bank, he talked about how the child's eyes lit up when he saw two shopping bags of food. We have to change things, which is why we need a new radical economic plan. Therefore he was proud of Jeremy Corbyn's and John McDonnell's work on this. The 2017 general election saw Labour's manifesto dominate the media and it shook the country up. The next would build on it.

Lastly, local activist Becky Sergeant talked about the disengaged young people she met at work as a FE lecturer. They were alienated because sources of aspiration, inspiration and hope were lacking. Because of Stoke's industrial heritage, the old culture of it suiting local employers for young people not to do well at school has hung over. For example, of the 382 schools considered underperforming in terms of GCSE results, five of them are in Stoke-on-Trent. To turn this situation around, a culture of education needs a belief in something better. This means a campaign to bring schools back into local authority control, focus education by listening to communities and local businesses, and lastly listening to teachers - they're the professionals who know best. And this will provide a firmer foundation for a better economy.

We then moved into our groups to discuss some of the problems confronting the city. Our table came up with something of a grim list - the obvious increase in homelessness in Stoke (and, sadly, our first (and hopefully only) death this winter), cuts to youth services, bedroom tax and universal credit, debt, the expansion of cashpoint charging, cuts to policing, internal transport - particularly the dysfunctioning bus service across North Staffordshire, and cuts to early years. In the feedback we had to pick one to talk to, so we chose youth services and young people. The kinds of problems we're seeing: despondency, a growing gang culture, these are part of a legacy of Tory/independent failure over closing youth services and redirecting funds into building a new Hilton Hotel and vanity projects. The Tory solution is to demolish the post-apocalyptic (literally) East-West shopping precinct and bus station and build a central youth facility there. An idiot move that not only replicates the huge YMCA complex a stone's throw away, but is a recipe for a battleground for the emergent rival gangs. Such is the political calibre of the city's Tory councillors.

Other tables fed their challenges in too. These included addressing poor health, air quality and life expectancy, opportunities and graduate retention, the spread and geographic patterning of food banks, valuing all work and not fetishising received wisdom on "social mobility", underemployment, and addressing the mental health crisis.

Presiding over the afternoon session, Lyn Brown introduced John on Labour's plan for Britain. On each of the tables, there were flyers branded John McDonnell: Strong Principles, Sound Economics. And this is definitely what we got. John's discussion opened with the plan for a National Investment Bank. This involves keeping the Royal Bank of Scotland in public ownership as the NIB's basis, and its responsibility would be overcoming the bias against the regions by working with networks of regional banks. It would be governed by a strategic investment board to guide productive investment, and overcome the tendency of existing productive industry of investing profits not back into innovation, but property and land speculation.

Significantly, John was at pains to say Labour's programme wasn't a revisiting of nationalisations of the past. This was structural reform, and that means democratising services. The public ownership of water, energy, rail and the Royal Mail would mean experts, workers and consumers coming together. To embed democratisation further, the programme foresees a doubling of the cooperative sector (a target he thought was too modest) as a means of empowering workers and building long-term thinking into the economy. Co-ops, after all, tend to be less mercenary and short-termist than private business, particularly in the notoriously short-sighted culture of British capital. He also talked up the creation of a Ministry of Labour and the introduction of sectoral collective bargaining as a lever for redistributing wealth.

Additionally, Labour was committed to a proper national living wage at £10/hour. Greater protections for private tenants and more social housing, with half of the million new homes to be built by a Labour government being council housing. There was a reiteration of the pledge to introduce free childcare for 2-4 year olds, and an industrial strategy that would look to grow high value production. This is inseparable from ambitious targets to draw 60% of energy from low carbon or renewable sources by 2030, and and immediate pledge to grown Research and Design to three per cent of GDP. This combined with sectoral industrial strategies, the creation of an ecosystem of policies supportive of business, the embedding of the National Education Service, and strategic use of government procurement would contribute to reversing off shoring.

While this is exciting from the narrow standpoint of technocratic managerialism, this is very much a political programme. Each of the underpinning principles - economic justice, equality and diversity, and environmental sustainability throw down a gauntlet challenging existing vested interests, clusters of power, and piles of unearned wealth. For John, this represented a transformative programme that offers hope and a better future. In a number of ways, the damage the Tories have done has wound the clock back to pre-1945 levels of destitution and social dislocation. Summing up, he concluded that getting this programme through isn't a matter of electing Labour MPs and letting them get on with it - nodding towards efforts and democratising the party, he said that when we next get into government we all go into government.

Ruth Smeeth as the MP for Stoke North put some local context to the plan, noting the situation the Tories have foisted on the city completely unacceptable. Last summer, the Holiday Hunger programme served 16,500 meals to schoolchildren. Regarding a luncheon club she helped set up, 176 people in her constituency turned up when she and volunteers were expecting "about 25". Money and economics in Stoke North means 31% of kids living in poverty, and foodbank use going up 46% since the introduction of universal credit. Efforts aimed at rolling this back begins with the return of a Labour council this May, she concluded.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the workshop session but overall this was much better than the usual talk/Q&A. With political education a perennial problem in all Labour parties, a focussed crowd sourcing of ideas like this in the framework of national policy (clearly explained!) made for an extremely useful event.

Can the Tories Win a General Election?

Politics is weird. After surviving her no confidence vote last week by the skin of her teeth, and with a general election seemingly off the agenda for the foreseeable everyone's gone election crayzay. More than one report over the weekend talked about preparations being made by CCHQ for a snap contest, and Tory MPs and commentators have mused aloud about its possibility. If that wasn't peculiar enough, it was The Sun who published the most interesting piece about the Conservative Party's plans. I know, reading this rotten rag for its politics coverage proved worthwhile for once.

In an entertaining report by Tom Newton-Dunn, it's panic stations in the thinning ranks of the Tories. Internal polling, not cited of course, suggests a minority Labour government in the event of another general election and the party is ill-prepared to fight a gruelling battle in the marginal seats. They haven't got the people, their membership is demoralised, and their data mostly dates from the 2015 general election. Of course, reports like this make it less likely for Tory MPs to support a general election should May be forced into calling one, but one cannot but cite its most delicious line. Quoting an (obviously) unnamed "senior minister", he moaned how once solid streets in their constituency have become toxic territory. "If you knock on a door and they have books on their shelves, you can be pretty sure these days they’re not voting Tory."

They're in a rum do, and a general election probably isn't going to happen. But in the event of one at the end of February how likely is it the Tories are going to do as bad as The Sun reports? Let's think through this. Out of the gates, the Tories have three in-built advantages. The print media are mostly in their corner, and their talking points have the tendency to dominate the broadcast media agenda - regardless of rules about balance in the immediate run up to polling day. Second, while print's influence is waning it is consumed disproportionately by older people, and these still remain more likely to turn out and vote, which cancels out the lead Labour has in younger age cohorts. Lastly, the Tories are the party of Brexit. This is the ideological glue holding together their declining bloc of voters. As May has shown zero interest in other approaches to Brexit, the Tories are singularly ill-suited to appealing beyond their existing voter group, and so like 2017 it's going to be a turnout game - though the time is rapidly coming when this is no longer a viable strategy and they're going to have to think about winning the active support of swing voters and younger people.

That's for the future, this is now. What else can we expect? With a prospectus that can hardly be described as positive, the Tories will resort to type and scaremonger. It's what they do. More evil Corbyn and John McDonnell, more Labour in the pockets of the Scottish nationalists, more tax and spend, scrapping nukes, abolishing the army, smashing the monarchy and nationalising your iPad. Frightening the horses has proved effective time and again, and the Tories are past masters at using fear to cow a segment of the electorate into voting for them. And while this played out in 2017, it wasn't enough to push them over the line like it did with Dave two years earlier. However, one lesson they have drawn from that debacle was their failure to put the frighteners on about the economy - a mistake they're unlikely to repeat twice in succession. Nevertheless, this isn't a foregone conclusion. May would frame it as the Brexit election, and so concentrating on that could muddy her warnings about economic collapse, violent revolution and gunpoint expropriation. The second difficulty was how super savvy Labour proved to be in driving the agenda last time: the agenda could easily be wrestled from her again and the election become about what kind of life people should be living. On wages, housing, security, the NHS, and so on, let's just say there's a reason why the Tories prefer peddling night terrors over and above the scrutiny of their record.

Stacked against the Tories is the power of social media. It's not just readers of books they need to worry about. If the Tories are going all out on Leave, they need to know "their people" are infrequently online and, it would stand to reason, less able to be mobilised by digital networks. As 2017 demonstrated, Labour was able to significantly close down the Tory media advantage by leveraging its mass membership as an electoral factor in sharing material with eyeballs that normally look askance or evade contact with matters politic. More important was the party's social density. As mentioned here many, many times there are very few people in the country whose social circle is untouched by a Labour Party member. A physical party presence, of knowing someone who can answer questions about the party, its policies, and offer a flesh and blood view in opposition to whatever's coming out of the TV, papers or radio is priceless. And there's the small matter of activism. Labour moaners might whinge about not seeing hundreds of Corbyn supporters at CLP meetings and ward leafleting sessions, but when the chips are down they will turn out in massive numbers again. To this the Tories have no answer.

Still, the Tories have the luxury of facing a divided opposition, and one that might become even more divided. Unlike last time, it would be difficult for the Labour Party to nod sitting MPs and 2017 candidates through as automatic selections. It is unconscionable how dead weights like Chris Leslie shouldn't face a full selection meeting. In the event of the old Blairites decanted out of the party, the prospect of a new centrist formation cannot be ruled out and with it the possibility of leeching Labour votes. Then again, more likely is it would sink without a trace thanks to lack of time to build a name and, well, its protagonists are guaranteed to bring zero charisma and even fewer recruits to proceedings. The Tories might hope the LibDems going hard remain in their campaign will also divert Labour votes - because it worked so well in 2017. However, this could just as easily attract Tory remainers suspicious of/horrified by left wing Labour. And as for the SNP, they're going to be emphasising Brexit and remain more than independence on this occasion, which poses those Scottish Tory seats a threat.

In sum, it's a mixed picture. The Tories aren't in a good place, but thanks to their institutional support and inertia as the so-called natural party of government they could do better than The Sun suggests. But if they want to go for it, they have to go sooner rather than later. The longer they wait, the more difficult remaining the largest party, let alone retaking a majority, becomes.

Anti-Corbynism and Brexit

"This story is not true. The figures are completely made up." A wise rule of thumb for every story to feature in The Mail, but today's splash that Labour are haemorrhaging members come amid media assurances that the party is hopelessly split and faces untold damage unless Jeremy Corbyn "gets off the fence". When you've heard the same line from multiple pundits and papers supposedly at ideological odds with one another, you might be forgiven for thinking there's a machine somewhere mindlessly churning out the same talking points with a minimum of human supervision.

At any one time, there are multiple shenanigans and struggles configuring British politics. And one persistent strand is anti-Corbynism. There are sections of the bourgeois mainstream whose overriding concern is the derailing, discrediting, and the destruction of this most inconvenient of insurgencies. They encompass all the parties, bits of the state, business, a range of campaigns, celebrity, the media, academia, and will use whatever comes to hand. This is not a conspiracy, though these networks will necessarily collaborate, plan, swap notes. Most of their bile is generated spontaneously from whatever motivates their hostility to the Corbyn project. Whether the secret state, or indeed states, have a hand in these machinations, it cannot be reduced to spooks. Anti-Corbynism is inseparable from the class relations of establishment privilege and power, arises organically from them, and therefore will always possess something of a loose, decentralised and undisciplined character.

Over the course of the last 12 months, the hostiles have learned that potentially the most effective way of stuffing Corbynism into the backrooms and sparsely-attended fringe meetings is by trying to drive a wedge between the leader and his support. They have realised banging on about anti-semitism is good for bad headlines, but the overriding consequence is a demobilisation of the right's own base in the party (though it doesn't stop some from carrying on). Ditto for Corbyn's litany of sins against the establishment common sense in foreign affairs. They do think they have struck a rich seam after years of casting around: Britain's relation to the European Union. The sociological basis of the bulk of Labour's 2017 vote, not least its new activist base is a rising class who've suffered political marginalisation for decades. However, this class of immaterial labourers, whose ranks range from the low paid to the handsomely remunerated tend to be conscious of the economic dislocation Brexit means and broadly identify with the social liberal/liberal internationalist cloak the EU wraps itself in. And so, as it's largely the old New Labour establishment leading continuity remain, Brexit and the issue of a second referendum is being employed to drive a wedge between the Corbyn faithful and, well, Corbyn.

This report for The Graun typifies the tendency. Young people out in city centres on a Saturday getting signatures petitioning Corbyn to call for a second referendum. Being something of a veteran when it comes to running petitions, surely they'd be better off collecting signatures against someone who can actually do something about it like, I don't know, the Prime Minister? Nevertheless, it's catnip for anti-Corbynism. "I'm going to vote for the Greens!" comes the refrain. And it's the same hard remain talking points as well. "Get off the fence!" and "Corbyn wants an election, but it’ll be one where we have the choice between a Tory Brexit deal and some magical unicorn Brexit deal promised by Labour." And the usual "the majority of Labour members want a referendum!". Would that be those same Labour members who are content to give Corbyn and Keir Starmer the space to carry on as they have been doing?

I'm sure it's accidental how the article neglected to mention these were campaigns run by Our Future Our Choice, an organisation with some interesting friends and who have a record of running pointed anti-Labour anti-Brexit campaigns. But while this is a relatively gentle addition to the mood music, The Mail's spread about imminent meltdown is its amplification. Anonymous briefings from "insiders" who suggesting membership is plummeting like a stone, and that this has blown a £6m hole in party coffers - this is the fearless kind of journalism we enjoy. "It's because of Jeremy's stance on Brexit" warbles our unnamed and probably non-existent source. We can afford to take this with a pinch of salt because unlike the Tories, Labour membership isn't a trade secret. If there was a big drop social media and the party's gossip circuits would be alive with chatter from secretaries and CLP habitués about mass resignations or, at the very least, mass non-renewal. And yet ... tumbleweed. The Sun decided to have a go as well, but the only one that could find willing to go on the record was noted champion of the grass roots, Chris Leslie. This would be the same Chris Leslie whose own constituency party passed a no confidence motion in him, noting his "disloyalty and deceit". It's interesting, the right wing tabloids are decrying Labour as an incompetent shit show who are simultaneously inept and useless, but will nevertheless expropriate the expropriators with lethal Bolshevist efficiency.

To muddy matters even further, ramping up the perception Labour is in a whirlwind of crisis, we learn (again, from The Graun) that apparently Labour would lose votes if it backed another referendum. Apparently, this poll found that Labour would gain nine per cent of Tory voters but lose 11% of existing Labour voters, virtually guaranteeing the party would lose. Apparently over a third of LibDems voters and Green voters would switch, but given how squeezed they are in the polls it's reasonable to assume not many more can transfer from the absolute cores they were driven down to in 2017. Also, one point the article misses is what it might do to the Tory vote. May's gamble was her belief that being the party of Brexit would carry the majority of the kippers, which it did, as well as swathes of Labour leavers in the north. She didn't partly thanks to Labour's adroit positioning on Brexit. Should we get another election, and chatter about one is increasing despite the no confidence vote falling, thanks to differential turn out the Tories will position themselves as the custodians of Brexit and if this ground is ceded, as opposed to Labour adopting a soft Brexit position again, May will get her desired result. If you think Tory "centrists" are somehow going to prevent this by launching a new party or whatever, prepare yourself for disappointment.

There's the state of play this weekend. Labour is in crisis, Labour's members are deserting, Corbyn is a massive millstone, etc. Meanwhile, calm heads will note support for a second referendum among the wider electorate is pathetically low, there is no route through Parliament for one, and Labour have posted modest leads in all the polls bar YouGov's outliers. Far from Labour being caught between a rock and a hard place, it's Theresa May who is stuck but refusing to abandon her Brexit position. There's the home of the real crisis, the black hole in which all sense is crushed to an infinitesimally dense point. And the one threatening to drag us all down with it.

John Mann's Red Wash

"Desperate Theresa May caves in on workers' rights to save Brexit deal". Well done The Mirror for getting the scoop, but what does it mean? Since losing her majority, May's approach to Brexit has proceeded more with an eye to Tory party management than actually getting her deal through the Commons. Then, during last Autumn's party conference season the penny belatedly dropped and the PM realised that intransigent opposition from the government benches meant she needed Labour MPs onside. Since then, nothing. And now at the 11th hour, we learn she's been having chats with John Mann, Caroline Flint and others about accepting an amendment on the protection of workers' rights.

The amendment seeks to fix existing EU workers' protections in British law, and would also give MPs a future vote should the EU decide to enhance employee rights in the future. Justifying his amendment, Mann argues that it makes May's deal more attractive to Labour MPs by improving on the vague sentiments expressed in the original deal text. Flint went on to say that she hoped the amendment would be backed by the front bench. Unfortunately for the "20 MPs" who are prepared to back the Mann/Flint amendment the likelihood of that support forthcoming is up there with a Simon Danczuk comeback.

John McDonnell and Angela Rayner have piled in, branding its acceptance by the Prime Minister as a cynical act of self-interest, adding that the Tories can't be trusted on workers' rights. This is more than the usual argy-bargy of parliamentary rhetoric. We should not forget that May has proven more underhanded and happy to lie than even her predecessor, her ruling out of a general election before calling one and pulling the meaningful vote on her deal the day before it was originally due to take place should set the alarm bells screaming "she's not to be trusted!". Likewise as Tim Roache of the GMB observes, if she really cared about workers' rights then there were ample opportunities to get trade unions around the table. Also, it's pretty meaningless. EU workers' protections have meant little as the Tories and, disgracefully, New Labour took Britain to the bottom of the league for employee rights in Western Europe. Workers in Germany and France still enjoy greater rights at work, despite us all (for the moment) being part of the EU. And for her part, while May is hardly the workers' friend she has not pledged to scrap protections or anything like that - this being a hobby horse of the hard right of her party - so accepting the Mann/Flint amendment comes at zero political cost to her.

What John Mann and co. are doing then is providing red wash for May's deal. Assuming she loses the vote next week, when she returns to the Commons with her Plan B it will, in all likelihood, be in the form of a cross-party appeal for further amendments. Clearly this is what both Mann and Flint expect as both have framed their intervention around workers' rights as the beginning of a process that incorporates more of Labour's red lines. And from May's point of view, the more new amendments are bolted to her deal, the more the clock ticks down to exit day, the more likely sundry Labour MPs are going to back it to prevent the disaster of no deal.

No Labour MP should have anything to do with getting May's deal through. While all Brexit options aren't good, some are less harmful than others. Contrary to efforts aimed at muddying the waters, Labour's position is clear and straightforward: a deal based on a customs union with single market access. This softest of soft Brexits guarantees continuity for EU residents as well as established trading relationships, and delivers on the 2017 manifesto. A position, you'll remember, that was able to bridge the gap between Labour remain and Labour leave constituencies when everyone else was predicting electoral catastrophe. By going along with May's deal, Mann and friends are advocating a harder Brexit than what could be achieved. They have forgotten, whether purposely or not, that the biggest danger to our people - their constituents - is the continuation of the Tories in power, and are on a course that would keep May and the rest of them in government. Such a position for a Labour MP is unforgivable, and makes their future as Labour MPs untenable.

Corbynism in 2018

Going in to 2018, Corbynism was presented with a challenge it hadn't encountered before: the relative peace of continuity. The movement began with an event to mobilise around in the 2015 leadership contest, ditto with the the coup that failed in 2016, and last year we had the general election and its fall out. There was nothing scheduled on the horizon for 2018, nor was there likely to be a mobilising moment. The old establishment had nothing to commend themselves, no avenues for striking back, nor any hope of destabilising Corbyn and snatching control of the party away from the membership. And Theresa May wasn't about to call a general election what with Brexit negotiations and a Tory party more divided then any time in, well, perhaps ever. How then has Corbynism fared over the course of the year? How is it developing? What are its successes? And how is it coping with threats and challenges?

In the metrics that matter most to conventional politics, Corbyn's Labour has a good story to tell. Polling is either level pegging, a little bit behind, or a little bit in front of the Tories. "Oh", wail Corbyn's opponents, "if he was any good we'd have double-digit point leads over this shower of a government". And perhaps Labour would if it wasn't for the political circumstances we find ourselves in. As noted previously and many times since, political polarisation has persisted throughout the year. It's not just a matter of the Tories and Labour mobilising different constituencies of voters, but that Brexit plays different roles in gluing these coalitions together. For Labour voters, as a general rule Britain's relationship to the EU is important, but other concerns like housing, the NHS, jobs, a better future, etc. more or less successfully keeps the coalition together. For the Tories, Brexit is absolutely central. It keeps the former kippers on board, it helps keep the Scottish unionist vote on board, and works as an attractor for the flotsam and jetsam of voters who buy the delusions of Brexit. If Brexit was a minority pursuit, which it isn't, then the Tory coalition would be smaller. To reiterate, the reason why the Tory vote remains large is because they are the party of Brexit. They're negotiating it, they're its custodians, and millions of people - who wouldn't necessarily vote Tory under other circumstances - are backing them for as long as it takes to get it done. Whether this falls away after 29th March or persists while the government prats about with a trade deal is a question we might be able to answer this time next year.

But this post is about Corbynism, not the Tories! May's local elections weren't a thumping success, though getting the best result in London for 50 years is worth shouting about. Nevertheless it demonstrated steady-as-it-goes progress with a polarised electorate in the background. Though, without indulging official optimism, it is worth remembering that turn outs for local elections are low and tend to flush out two groups of people; the super hard core who follow local politics and, disproportionately, older people. For Labour to do well in contests whose demographics favour the party's Tory opponents isn't to be sniffed at.

With electoral consolidation, um, consolidating, how are things looking in the party? Well, in 2018 we find a similar story. Momentum's membership grew massively over the year, passing the 40K mark in the Summer and with trolling talk of it soon overtaking the real membership of the Tories. It's possible! The year also saw the left firm up its control. 2018 began well with the left making a clean sweep of the three extra seats introduced to the NEC. There was plenty of argy-bargy in the last round of selections for this year's local elections, with the right claiming the left are racist/sexist/homophobic for deselecting councillors with awful politics - the sort of absurd logic which, turned the other way, damns every one of them for supporting white boy David Miliband over Diane Abbott in the 2010 leadership contest. In March, Corbyn flexed his muscles in the sacking of Owen Smith from the front bench for continuing to peddle his own line about a second referendum as opposed to the party's position. His forced departure occasioned the usual bellyaching, with Peter Hain going so far as to describe it a "terrible Stalinist purge". Neither it nor the fall out of the Skripal affair, where Corbyn used the occasion to draw attention to Russian money propping up the Tories, made any dents on the left in the Labour Party, and following May's elections it was a fairly easy task to get left wing delegates elected to conference and returning a full slate of leftwingers to this year's NEC.

The only real setback the project suffered internally were the shenanigans around mandatory reselection. Readers will recall there was an on-paper majority for it, and sundry rightwing Labour MPs were getting sweaty. Even Westminster colossi like Mike Gapes openly pondered their resignation of the Labour whip. And, in the end, there was some sort of deal done and instead of a simple reselection process we got a reform of the present trigger ballot system. This was disappointing, but not surprising. The leadership wanted to avoid headaches from the parliamentary party, and trade unions wanted to continue to have a hand in who does and doesn't get selected. Calling it a betrayal, as some did, is a bit much but it is an own goal and one bound to bite both the leadership and trade union general secretaries on the backside in the future. Nevertheless, what it did demonstrate was a tension in the relationship between Corbynism-in-the-party and Corbynism-in-the-unions.

Throughout the year, Corbynism's opponents in the party have either resigned in despair, as per John Woodcock and Ivan Lewis (neither, of course, had anything to do with a studied refusal to face sexual assault allegations), thrown tantrums like Frank Field, or trailed the prospect of a new centre party. If these people can't marry up a coalition of recalcitrant MPs and 50 million quid of LoveFilm money, how can they hope to be decent ministers? Well, we know they can't. But as far as the old Blairism and the Labour right are concerned, they did hit upon two weapons that have caused damage to the project and will no doubt be reached for again in 2018.

The first is anti-semitism. Jeremy Corbyn isn't an anti-semite, and neither are the overwhelming majority bulk of the Labour Party. But as explained here, there is a culture of anti-semitic carelessness on the left that has come into the party, which has been amplified by ones and twos of Labour people on social media sharing anti-semitic conspiracy idiocies, far right memes, defences of Gilad Atzmon, and Rothschild obsessions - all of whom are seized upon with alacrity by the media and the Labour right. This climaxed over the summer with the row over Jeremy Corbyn's attendance at that funeral. Unfortunately, while the right should be condemned for their disgusting and dishonest behaviour on this issue - where were most of them before anti-semitism became something you could damage the Corbyn project with? - the left needs to take responsibility and stamp this shit out. Better, quicker disciplinary procedures, a programme of party-directed education, and zero tolerance of anti-semites, conspiracy fools, and "leftist" liabilities who deny there's any such problem are good starting points.

The second is Brexit or, to be more accurate, the movement for remain. Broader and more politically amorphous than the FBPE cult on Twitter, it is nevertheless a bourgeois social movement, and one used by sections of the Labour right to try and drive a wedge between Labour members and Labour voters, who the polls tell us are mostly anti-Brexit and want a second referendum, and the party leadership. There was the pre-Christmas poll from YouGov that boldly claimed the LibDems would surge to second place if Labour was seen enabling Theresa May's Brexit, and there was the Graun interview in which Corbyn restated Labour's 'all options on the table' policy, which was taken up as some great betrayal by sundry Labour MPs and their friends in the Liberal Democrats. Of course, Labour has a tricky tightrope to walk. Brexit is damaging and a load of crap, but unless you think a bit of dodgy funding and a few Facebook adverts invalidate the result (especially when remain spent more overall, including on Facebook), seeing it through is the democratic thing to do. Unless another general election comes along and rewrites the rules. As noted earlier, Brexit does play a different role in Labour's voter coalition vs the Tory vote, but different role doesn't mean no role. In my view, calling for a general election with the promise to try and negotiate a different deal with the promise of a referendum at the end to confirm it is the best approach to take. Whatever happens, the party cannot be put in a position where it "reluctantly" votes for May's deal - Scotland and the fate of the LibDems shows what happens when other parties become the Tories' meat shield.

Overall, Corbynism is more or less politically united. More activists are more regularly involved, and provided the party carefully steps its way through the Brexit mess it remains well placed to win a general election. But there is still much to be done. Corbynism conceives of labour as a party/movement, a collective active in community struggles, trade unions and wider campaigns while simultaneously being a contender for power. The two are not mutually exclusive as the cretinists of the right maintain, but central to winning an election and transforming our society. Therefore we need to be aware that Corbynism hasn't spurred wider radicalisation. At least not yet. Tied up with this is building the network of ideas, thinkers, publications and websites, broadcast media, institutions - which is central if you want to frame the battle for the country's soul in terms of hegemony and counter hegemony. This is coming together and Corbynist outriders, mainly from the left of the movement are regularly getting themselves in the media to push the new common sense. However, the problem of what John McDonnell calls 'cadre development' remains. When you have a Labour Party culture historically antithetical to, well, thinking, and a social media culture productive of conspiracy theorising, instilling a sense of history, capacities for informed social critique, and hunger for new knowledge is a big ask. Nevertheless this is happening and, fortunately for the left, the experience of tens of millions tallies with what it is saying about the world.

Corbynism then leaves 2018 in good shape, in better shape than when it entered it. 2019 isn't going to be a walk in the park, but when you look at the state of our opponents in the party and outside of it, we could be in a much worse place.

Beware Boosterism

Because it's Christmas and loads of people are off work, comrades hanging about social media today might have seen this tweet doing the rounds. It is a summary of this year's election results, lumping together by-elections from across the year and Labour's results from May's local elections.

You can understand why folks would be keen to share it. Labour is put on 40.5% of the vote and is up 76 council seats with a tally of 2,445 to shout about. The Tories on the other hand finished the year with 1,451 councillors who faced election, down 84, and 32% of the vote. And for those interested in such things the Liberal Democrats have 579, up 85 (and a 14% vote share). And so these results allow for two inferences to be drawn. That Labour is doing better than polling suggests and the Tories much worse, and therefore the polling companies are minimising Labour's support - just as they did in the run up to the general election. Therefore it's safe to ignore the YouGov latest, and all those other polls the peg the Tories ahead. Unsurprisingly, we have certain sites with a reputation for a conspiratorial approach to politics gleefully republish it. It might be factually accurate, but utterly useless and politically misleading.

Labour's support in this "poll" is boosted by the performance in the local elections which, among other things, saw the best result in London for almost 50 years. The problem is for anyone wanting to read off the national picture from May is that the contests were more or less clustered in Labour held areas. It still picked up a good haul of seats, but, well, because London. It is not the rest of the country, nor is it every big city - as the results from Birmingham's mayoralty contest should remind us. One would presume next year, after a set of council elections in mainly Tory held areas register a depression of Labour's vote, that Skwawkbox will be reassuring its readers that the results are geographically skewed and therefore shouldn't be anything to worry about. Remarks that, coincidentally, apply to the by-elections that took place this year.

Bandying about results like this without any caveats might make some feel good, but it's dishonest, politically disarming, and is only setting folks up for disappointment. The job of commentary, particularly left wing commentary, is to analyse, make sense and suggest directions for one's party/movement or whatever. Boosterism of this kind is the enemy of clarity, and it's clarity what we need to identify and make the most of the opportunities presented to us.

Malevolence or Ineptitude?

Why do First World War generals carry a reputation for incompetence? Because they would launch offensive after offensive against well-entrenched positions without regard to tactics, uselessly and criminally throwing away the lives of tens of thousands of young men. The stakes aren't as high, but I'm reminded of their example when surveying the strategic geniuses of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Had things gone according to the government's timetable, after Theresa May has lost her vote on the withdrawal agreement today she would have faced a no confidence vote. There was some consideration whether this was going to be a normal vote or one aimed at May personally. It wouldn't have had any constitutional force, but made her position next to impossible. Why did Labour consider this? Because the front bench hold to the peculiar notion that if you're going to put something to the vote, you do what it takes to win it. The DUP are not May's biggest fan after doing the dirty on them on the status of Northern Ireland in the backstop. Nor are the scorned but impotent European Research Group of gurning Brexiteers, who've sat on the sidelines waiting for the number of no confidence letters to tick over the magic 48. Would they accept the opportunity to turf May out of office? Some of them probably would. But at the price of bringing the Tories down and opening the road to Jeremy Corbyn? Not. A. Chance.

Now the Prime Minister has pulled her vote, what game are this bunch of clowns paying at? Almost a who's who of Owen Smith's celebrated leadership campaign (including the great man himself), we have some of the very worst MPs to sit on the Labour benches are calling for a no confidence vote. Are they simply thick? Alas, even they are no strangers to the low skulduggery of our exalted parliamentary democracy.

Their little press conference this afternoon with the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the LibDems, and Caroline Lucas that called upon Labour to table a no confidence vote was stuffed full of ulterior motives. All of these people know it can't hope to win, so there are a couple of things going on. First and foremost is an attempt to shift Labour away from its general election first position. The thinking goes if a no confidence fails, then the hopes of an election are dashed with it - leading Labour to formally adopt a second referendum position. The attendant dangers of doing so have lessened slightly in my view, but the same discredited gang are ready to swoop in and front up the remain case (assuming remain would even be an option). And if they're at the helm, they would lose.

But, of course, it suits the nationalist parties and the Liberal Democrats to posture around a no confidence vote. They can point to Corbz and attack him for not being radical enough, for saving May's bacon when her repeated self-owns have her hanging on the ropes. For LibDems desperate to get back into the game, they think it gives them a lever with leftish remainers - once again demonstrating they don't have a single clue about what they need to do. For the SNP and Plaid, they too think there are electoral rewards from being more remainy - keeping Labour down in Scotland remains Nicola Sturgeon's permanent immediate political priority, and for PC supplanting Labour in Wales remains their strategic task.

What then of Labour's malcontents? How is their position advantaged? Again, it's part of the wedge strategy. Noting the ten-a-penny polls that show how remain/second vote friendly Labour members and Labour supporters are, here Corbyn can be shown up for not opposing the Tories sufficiently and manoeuvring to avoid the so-called People's Vote. Meanwhile they can try and abrogate for themselves the title of "proper" opposition and champions of members' views on the subject. Undoubtedly some of the names on Ian Murray's letter are useful idiots, and others are reduced to the level of putting a minus wherever the party leadership puts a plus, but never underestimate the Labour right's capacity for cynicism. It's how they were able to control the party for so long.

When Government has a Nervous Breakdown

Seldom do I feel sorry for Michael Gove. In fact, his state of wellbeing isn't something that should trouble any right thinking person. But to spend part of your morning defending Theresa May and swearing that the "meaningful vote" on her Brexit withdrawal deal was definitely happening on Tuesday ... it's almost as if she set him up knowing she was going to smack his face with a great big egg. It's remarkable really. After spending an eternity of exclaiming my way of the highway, the PM pulled the vote and has promised to go back to Brussels to beg for further "reassurances" on the Irish backstop. To add to the lulz, Ireland's Leo Varadkar said that this wasn't up for renegotiation without reopening the whole agreement - words echoed by Donald Tusk who has called for an emergency meeting. What a mess.

May knows there aren't about to be any last minute concessions or changes to the deal. But by ditching a vote she knows her rump Tory party were bound to lose and rescheduling it to the never-never, she can play brinkmanship without the catastrophe of seeing her deal voted down in the first place. As Paul Mason observes, holding it in late January - which appears to be the consensus among Westminster watchers for the moment - might make soft rebels on the Tory benches and the odd Labour MP sweaty enough to reluctantly back the deal. Another month of the falling pound, delayed investment and business whingeing will surely do the trick for some. Yet this won't matter appreciably. The polarisation out in the country is unlikely to shift, especially after May's egregious and ungracious dumping on parliamentary democracy. Whether you're leave or remain, left or right, she has shown herself up as a dishonest chancer and a bottler.

Nevertheless, in addition to the brinkmanship May has bought more time for another round of negotiations with the Tory party. Speaking on Andrew Marr on Sunday, Boris Johnson - The Economist's Idiot of the Year - did throw May something of a life line. The usual bluster and Brexit fantasyland nonsense got spun. Likewise, when can you tell Boris Johnson is lying? When he publicly affects concerns for others, as he did so when he said he would feel personally responsible if anyone lost their job because of Brexit. But yes, the lifeline. In the sole point of interest during an otherwise wasted 20 minutes, he said his only real problem with May's deal was the Irish backstop. If this could be fixed, he more or less said he'd be prepared to back the deal. Shifting the Ireland position ain't going to happen for as long as May is in power, but the "reassurances" May is seeking might help Johnson evolve toward a position where he "reluctantly" backs her deal. Why? The majority of the Commons are against the deal, and Tory Brexiteers have made enough noises. But say you're in the I-want-to-lead-the-Tories game, who are the biggest bloc of MPs? The Woke Soubz remainers? Pah. The Moggites? They can't even muster a no confidence party. The wider fraternity of Brexit ultras? Nope. The biggest chunk of Tory MPs are, believe it or not, the May loyalists. Johnson has proved himself the most opportunistic, unprincipled and amoral Tory to grease his way around the backbenches for some decades. If moving to support May's deal gets him closer to Number 10 he will do it.

However, the news the UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 couldn't have come at a worse time for the government. All of a sudden the remain-minded factions on the Labour benches know a halt to Brexit is, constitutionally speaking, within reach. It doesn't matter that May has ruled out revoking it. After all, what are her promises worth these days? A delay followed by more spanners in the works come January makes its revocation more likely, at least so goes the reasoning. But it also affords Labour's position more weight. If your route to a general election involves not antagonising Labour leavers and keeping remain on board (though the EU vote plays a different role among Labour's voter coalition), then vigorously attacking May's pathetic deal, saying you're going to renegotiate it around your priorities - the central plank of which is a permanent customs union instead of a backstop - and then offer a vote on the final deal is the best way of knitting Labour together for the purposes of winning an election. This becomes all the more credible now Article 50 can be deactivated.

There we have it, another day in Brexitland. The peculiar place where the rules of politics are reversed, and the extraordinary becomes the ordinary. The long grass beckoned and that's where May has thrown her deal. It buys her time, but for what? It reduces May to a Macawber-like character, sat in Number 10 hoping something will turn up. Perhaps Boris Johnson will save her, perhaps the mood of the country will change magically and swing behind the deal. Whatever happens, May's fate and May's Brexit is in the hands of others. Far from taking back control, chaos and uncertainty reigns, and no one has the foggiest about what happens next.

A General Election is a Necessity

In the then infamous but now largely forgotten behind-the-scenes documentary Vice filmed in the Leader of the Opposition's office, I remember Jeremy Corbyn getting annoyed at something Jonathan Freedland had written in The Graun. Why is something of a mystery, because as media commentators go he is more beige than bilge, and were it not for his parking space at the paper's offices few would pay him any mind. Unfortunately, his recent missive does deserve an answer because his remarks coincide with the opinions of a large number of Labour supporters.

First things first, Labour's position on Brexit isn't ambiguous. Just as it was in the 2017 General Election manifesto, the party accepts the referendum vote and is looking to shape Brexit according to its priorities. These involve the protection of jobs and rights at work, a mitigation of economic damage, and preservation of environmental regulation. Labour's plan involves a customs union with the EU and a trade deal that brings the UK as close to the single market as possible. In other words, as sensible a Brexit as can be. And because it is sensible, it entails rejecting Theresa May's deal - not least because it curbs any future government's plans for state-led industrial activism, and does not allow for either party's withdrawal without the consent of the other. Now, I realise that Labour's position isn't as detailed as the 585 pages of withdrawal documentation drawn up by civil servants, but then Labour haven't done the negotiating. Freedland is mistaking the absence of detail appealing to the technocratic mindset as an absence of a political position.

In case we need to remind ourselves, the Tories wouldn't be on the brink of a terminal crisis if Labour had cleaved to those calling for a second vote or, worse, abandoned Brexit altogether. Labour's position - a customs deal plus a trade deal on top - has far from united the Tories against it, which was always the danger had the advice of your Alistair Campbells and your Tony Blairs been heeded. The Moggites had their offshore tax haven vision, if this dismal prospectus could ever be described as such. Others fancy a straight forward no deal that would crash the country but no doubt provide rich pickings for some disaster capitalist or another. After spectacularly losing her majority, May wasn't really that fussed about what flavour of Brexit there was provided there was some level of continuity and, of course, she got the opportunity to shut down immigration. And who knows what exactly the Cameroons wanted. Amber Rudd is in today's Times talking up the virtues of a Norway-style model just as Norway are saying they will to block it suggest they're all over the place.

For Freedland, Labour's position is fence-sitting. Were one of his Blairite heroes in charge, it would be canny politics. When May loses the vote on Tuesday, which is about the only certainty politics has right now, Labour are going to table a no-confidence vote en route to a general election. With the DUP pledging to defend the government against such a move, Labour are planning a personal no confidence vote in May. It doesn't have any constitutional force, but the DUP could back it and the Tories who've already sent their letters to Graham Brady are put on the spot by this move. If May loses it's difficult to see her ploughing on. Not that this matters to Freedland, for whom the general election is an unnecessary distraction and thinks only a second referendum on the deal is possible. Be careful what you wish for, especially when the Tories are the ones who determine the question. Instead, a new election allows for a refresh, of articulating new arguments and positions on the table. Labour would, rightly, put down an Article 50 extension, ask for the opportunity to negotiate a better deal and, at the end of it, (I hope) look to have it sanctified by an additional vote. The EU might not be in the mood to renegotiate, but I prefer to listen to what those a bit more experienced have to say than either pay cheque pundits or the author of the Harry Potter series.

An election is a risk. Labour might not win a majority, though an arrangement with the SNP on matters pertaining to Brexit would certainly be possible. But this is much less of a risk than letting the Tories carry on, or running a referendum with the same remain people in charge who lost the campaign last time and have learned nothing in the interim. Freedland's page filler is ultimately typical of this trend. He, and they, don't know the way forward, they don't like what the world has become (a feature shared with others they affect to detest), and gear their politics entirely around turning the clock back - regardless of the damage they could cause to democratic politics. A second referendum is a bad idea, and one that cannot be ruled out, but it's more sensible and useful to try and shift the balance of Westminster politics first.

Labour and a Second Referendum

John McDonnell's remarks aren't official Labour Party policy, but let's run with them. We know Theresa May's Brexit deal won't pass muster in the Commons, regardless of TV debates and threatening backbenchers with imminent doom. What happens next?

We are seeing a convergence between the reality wing of the Tories and leading Labour lights around a Plan B. This deal is a proper soft Brexit, an arrangement based loosely around Norway's relationship with the EU, and was previously an option available earlier in negotiations (but dismissed by May in her monomaniacal obsession with immigration). Given the cavalier way with which the PM had approached negotiations, this is looking like the only sane alternative that can be pulled together in short order - EU declarations of May's deal being the final deal notwithstanding. But how to handle the politics?

I think now it's time for Labour's constructive ambiguity to end. The party's call for a general election is fine, but we need to be clear about why. As we stare down the barrel of an entirely unnecessary national emergency, Labour should set out its stall. The party should be agitating for an Article 50 extension. This might upset the Brexiteers, but they're less than satisfied with May's position anyway and are inclined to accept that more time is needed to come up with a better deal. Though, of course, Norway with added extras is hardly the stuff of which nationalist delusions of an "independent Britain" are made, but it might be acceptable to the bulk of Labour leavers. Secondly, we need to be open that Norway plus is the only flavour of Brexit that meets Keir Stamer's six tests. This is politically acceptable to most remainers, moderate leavers, and has the virtue of uniting most of Labour, bringing on board the SNP and LibDems, exacerbates the internal splits in the Tories, and puts the Irish border issue to bed permanently. It allows for the possibility of Labour to hegemonise Brexit away from the little Englander fantasies of the right. And finally, Labour should say that it is prepared to put its negotiated deal to the public vote. No messing about or nonsense, it would be a simple take it or leave it - Labour's Brexit or no Brexit.

Yes, a general election isn't likely, but a map of what happens next can start winning people over to a clear way out of the mess. However, as John notes in his remarks, what happens if there isn't a general election? "Our policy is if we can’t get a general election, then the other option which we’ve kept on the table is a people’s vote", he said. As noted before, getting one through the Commons would be difficult but stands more of a chance than May's deal has. And provided it's an either or proposition, May's deal vs no Brexit, it avoids issues with ambiguity and legitimacy a three option referendum would have - and one ludicrously argued for by people who should know better.

Again, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. This is politics, not technics. As argued previously, Labour coming out against Brexit and being seen to thwart the "people's will" would have gifted the Tories a great opportunity to firm up their vote and provide them an in with Labour leavers. "You don't like us", might go the call, "but we're the ones delivering your referendum vote". With many leavers openly broadcasting their dislike for May's deal, and going so far as to say staying in the EU is better than this, they are articulating a sense of getting cheated and, crucially, prising at the cracks in the leaver bloc. That pain, that responsibility is uniquely the Tories precisely because Labour steered clear of opposing Brexit. And so Labour's room for manoeuvre has widened. If a second vote comes before the Commons, Labour's support for it will not cost anywhere near as much damage as it would have done six months, two months, even a month ago.

The second issue is what happens to the leave voters. Yes, some of them will be extremely angry and the possibility of resuscitating UKIP or something worse can't be ruled out. Labour's business, among other things, is not to make life more difficult for itself. Yet here too, I think May's deal has taken the sting out of possible opposition. This constituency, particularly the older, right-leaning Brexiteers, are tending toward Brexit fatigue and are just as likely - if not more so - to register their disappointment with Brexit's outcome by staying at home and not giving any party time of day than sign up with a rebooted BNP. Again, the hard right balloon has been allowed to deflate because the Tories were afforded space to wrexit Brexit on their own terms.

Neither path to a second referendum is without risk, though the rewards are greater if Labour is seen to take leadership on Brexit than where the party is merely responding to events. Nevertheless, in either case the situation Labour had to manage has changed. If you like, the zone of Brexit non-punishment has expanded. The constructive ambiguity it maintained, often in the face of terrific pressure, is approaching the end of its useful life. We need not be hemmed in by it any more, and the second vote can be a live, viable option.