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When Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour party in 2015, plenty of young, enthusiastic new members were attracted by his avuncular, zen-like calm. His apparent Jedi mind trick of wiping out the Tories’ majority in the 2017 election only further served to enhance his esteem.
With Brexit looming like a Death Star over the coming election, many of those members have been desperately hoping that Corbyn can shift the party to an unequivocally pro-Remain position. As more than 80 local parties submitted anti-Brexit conference motions, their pleas have sounded plaintive: “Help us Obi Wan, you’re our only hope.”
Today, at our WaughZoneLive event, Emily Thornberry underlined the Star Wars theme by comparing Labour’s current non-committal Brexit stance to the movie’s garbage compactor scene. “You get the hero standing in the middle and the walls are coming in...And the answer is not to just stand there and go ‘oh, well, I’m right’. The answer is to get out of there!”
Thornberry, like John McDonnell, used to be a sceptic about the merits of a second referendum, preferring a general election as a priority. But I understand both of them were persuaded after the shadow cabinet was presented earlier this year with union and other private polling that showed starkly how Labour could haemorrhage seats if it failed to have a clear Remain stance.
Both of them are the most loyal of Corbyn’s top team, and have stressed in recent weeks why they personally want the party to campaign for Remain in any referendum held by a Corbyn government.
But today’s new ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) statement - postponing Brexit policy to a special conference after the election - suggests that the Labour leader’s lifelong Euroscepticism trumps everything.
The leader’s allies point to Labour’s special conference in 1975 (held coincidentally in the Sobell Centre in Corbyn’s Islington constituency) coming out two-to-one against European membership. Most of the 3.3m card votes came from the T&G and engineering workers unions, both now part of Unite.
Corbyn’s key advisers and Unite chief Len McCluskey want to avoid Labour looking like ‘the party of Remain’ ahead of polling day. But it’s Corbyn himself who most wants the election to focus on Tory cuts and Labour’s radical manifesto.
Thornberry told me today that having a clear line on Brexit would actually avoid a ‘Brexit election’, “so that when Jeremy goes onto television he’s not constantly asked, what’s your policy on Brexit?” Her speech tomorrow (which one critic who has had sight of it says is “basically a leadership speech”) is expected to warn Labour will lose the election if it fudges its stance.
The reality is that Labour’s ruling NEC has spoken (albeit by a curious email vote in which 10 members didn’t take part). The brute force of union and leadership numbers means Corbyn will get his way in the vote tomorrow. And the penny is slowly dropping among Momentum followers and pro-Remain young delegates that brute force is what still runs party conference.
The Green New Deal activists learned the hard way last night (one younger delegate was in tears) that drafting composite motions is an art not a science. Thanks to collective union worries over jobs and practicality, it’s likely that there will be no radical zero emissions 2030 target when they meet again later.
And although there was some grassroots success in getting a policy to ‘integrate’ private schools into the state sector, it’s unclear whether McDonnell will find the huge sums needed (Eton’s assets alone would cost £500m).
Louise Brett, Secretary of Ealing North CLP, summed up the frustration with all the procedural tricks and process tonight in the conference hall. “I think this is an absolute debacle. It’s chaos. Really, there’s no point us delegates being here because everything that we vote for is voted down by the unions. Why don’t you unions stay here and we can all go to the pub?”
The question is whether that grassroots anger will soon be directed not just at the unions, but at Corbyn’s leadership. He’s not Darth Vader, but just imagine if Obi Wan Kenobi turns out to be from the Dark Side, after all.
“We’re all here [at conference]. I don’t see why we can’t make the decision now.”
- Emily Thornberry comes out against further delay to Labour’s Brexit stance
Labour’s ruling NEC voted via an email consultation by 16 to 10 for a new Brexit statement that “the party shall only decide how to campaign in such a referendum – through a one-day special conference, following the election of a Labour Government”. Note the word ‘only’.
Labour conference voted to include in the next election manifesto a commitment to “integrate all private schools into the state sector”. This would include: withdrawal of charitable status and tax privileges; ensuring universities admit the same proportion of private school students as in the wider population (currently 7%); redistributing ‘democratically’ endowments, investments and properties held by private schools.
Emily Thornberry said that Labour MPs and local parties should not be spending time on reselection trigger ballots. “It is the timing, it’s the timing. We have to be moving on and looking at the prize which is a general election.”
Shadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett claimed at a fringe meeting on Labour Leave voters: “A very senior member of the Labour party, she said to me: ‘Well, no wonder they’re all coming down south, the young people, because you can’t be gay up north.’ That was said by somebody whose name you’ll have mentioned several times in the past few weeks.” Emily Thornberry and Diane Abbott didn’t say it, so who did?
Jeremy Corbyn suggested that Andrew Marr was part of ‘the establishment’ because he hadn’t asked Dominic Raab a question about Boris Johnson’s alleged abuse of public funds. Marr said he welcomed all helpful advice on how to do his job.
Labour MP for Hartlepool Mike Hill has been suspended after an investigation was ordered into a sexual harassment complaint filed to officials.
Why Ex-Mining Villages Should Guide Corbyn’s Conference - Andrew Murray, New Statesman
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