Labour might just have played a blinder on brexit. But chaotic corbyn lets the party down | thearticle

The Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has been caught acting unlawfully and misleading the Queen, whilst embroiled in allegations of sexual and financial impropriety. This

afternoon he flies home from New York – tail very firmly between legs – and at midday tomorrow, he’ll stand up at the despatch box for what is bound to be the most excruciatingly

embarrassing PMQs of all time. In the meantime, a former Conservative minister, Nick Boles, has called for his immediate resignation, and another, Amber Rudd, has backed an Opposition motion

forcing him to release his Attorney’s General’s advice to Parliament. A very large question mark is hanging over Conservative Party Conference, and it’s possible that if the MPs who Boris

Johnson kicked out of the Party don’t vote for it to go ahead (and no one can see quite why they would), it will be cancelled. Whichever way you look at it, this week has been catastrophic

for the Conservative Party. And we’ve not yet reached Wednesday. For the opposition, of course, it should be Christmas come early. But it doesn’t feel like that. Why? Because, truly

astonishingly, given the circumstances, the Labour Party is in almost as much of a pickle as the Conservatives. There is a chance, and in my mind a good one, that taking an ambivalent stance

on Brexit will pay off. Yes, conventional wisdom dictates that in a country obsessed with Brexit, the parties which take a firm line (in this case the Conservatives and the Liberal

Democrats) will hoover up the vast majority of votes. But as we’ve seen before, conventional wisdom sometimes gets it wrong. Thanks to the Fixed Term Parliament Act, the Opposition can

choose to hold off an election for as long as it likes, and at the moment it looks like Labour will do just that until the Conservative Party delivers Brexit, or perishes in the attempt.

Once Britain has left the EU, having a strong line on Brexit won’t seem nearly as important, and the electorate may forget more quickly than we now imagine that Labour dithered and dallied

over the most important question to face the country in generations. In fact, once Brexit has happened, it’s quite possible that the whole of British politics will be turned on its head: the

Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats may suddenly look underprepared to govern, having concentrated all their energies into putting together credible Brexit strategies for the past three

years, and the Labour Party, which has neglected Brexit but come up with a plethora of policies on everything from wind farms to social care, may well look like the sensible choice to lead

Britain into the post Brexit era. Or it would. If it weren’t for Jeremy Corbyn. In the past week alone, the Labour Leader has presided over a civil war between two factions of his party; sat

by as a key aide resigned over lack of competence and “human decency” in his office; allowed senior shadow cabinet sources to brief journalists against him without consequence;

comprehensively failed to stem the flow of antisemitic abuse at Labour Conference, and allowed – perhaps encouraged – an attempted coup against his deputy. In an unprecedentedly bad week for

a sitting British Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition has somehow managed to come off, if not worse, then nearly as badly. The chance of the Conservative Party self combusting

while trying to deliver Brexit has always been high. After the supreme court ruling, it is even higher. If that happens – or even if Boris magically triumphs and squeaks through a new deal

at the eleventh hour – we may decide that by remaining ambivalent to the last, the Labour Party played a blinder on Brexit. What we won’t decide, however, is that having an incompetent

leader unable to keep disclipline is a sensible political strategy. And anyone still arguing that Jeremy Corbyn has got it together is as deluded as Andrea Leadsom, the woman who said, on

record, that she could “never imagine Boris behaving improperly”…