I can’t really disagree with a word of this
Corbyn’s real failing is his refusal to lead
Philip CollinsDecember 20 2018, 5:00pm,
Even faced with May’s chaotic plans for immigration and a no-deal Brexit, Labour still can’t outline a winning policy
The Which? website is not usually the place where politicians seek advice but the absurd twists of Brexit have made it so. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has declared that, as part of the contingency planning for leaving the European Union without a withdrawal agreement, he is buying fridges. Which? is carrying an excellent interactive tool for finding the best fridge, which I draw to Mr Hancock’s attention: freestanding or integrated, humidity controls in the salad drawer, that sort of thing.
This is what the government is reducing itself to. As well as the mockery it invites, this should cause a shiver of fear among Labour supporters. How can the official opposition be trailing a government that has a policy of bulk-buying fridges?
Jeremy Corbyn managed to turn the news cycle away from Europe for a few hours by calling Theresa May a “stupid woman” in parliament and then brazenly denying he had done so. Corbyn supporters rushed to their hero’s defence with laughable whataboutery (“why are we discussing this when there is a housing crisis?”) but the language matters.
Sexist language is, quite rightly, heavily policed in the Labour Party. To be exposed as an unthinking man with a sharp tongue both impairs Mr Corbyn’s image as a kinder, gentler politician and offends the Labour culture. If it didn’t matter he would have conceded and apologised. Mr Corbyn is often slippery with language but his supporters grant him Humpty Dumpty status. Words mean what he says they mean. He is so good that he can say words he hasn’t said.
Yet beyond the implications of Mr Corbyn’s language lies a political weakness. Mr Corbyn managed, once more, to find a way not to capitalise on a desperately vulnerable government. Let us not mince words about the shambles the Conservative Party has wrought on this country. There have been two instances this week of Mrs May’s government acting in a manner unprecedented in the history of political strategy; it is now official public policy that Britain should become poorer.
The white paper on immigration, published on Wednesday, is the result of Mrs May’s excessive interpretation that the 2016 referendum was a plebiscite against the free movement of people. The government is proposing to restrict the right of entry of productive workers from elsewhere. By 2025 this policy could, on the government’s own testimony, reduce GDP by between 0.4 per cent and 0.9 per cent of what it would otherwise have been.
This despite the fact that the government has no evidence, and admits that it has no evidence, that wages for British workers will rise or that productivity will improve. The proposal to establish a salary threshold of £30,000, below which visas will be restricted, would have terrible effects in some public services, notably social care which is a low-paid sector reliant on migrant labour. To reduce growth and make services worse. This is now government policy.
Yet this is not all. The government is, at the same time, planning an even more cunning method of reducing growth, which is to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement. The Department of Transport has announced a “lorry lottery” to allocate permits for cross-Channel trade. This country has 40 trade deals with non-European countries which depend on its membership of the EU and which all lapse in the event that Britain has no deal.
There is likely to be at least some disruption to the 84 per cent of the UK’s exported meat and the 72 per cent of its dairy produce that goes to the EU. The price of food would rise, at least in the short term. A ten-minute wait for every one of the 2.6 million lorries which pass through Dover every year would cause chaos. The government is now in active planning for this outcome and, if Mrs May’s deal falls on January 14 next year, it could even become its preferred option.
We are all becoming inured to terrible politics yet this is extraordinary. It is also unnecessary. It is perfectly possible for Mrs May to say, brooking no contradiction, that she is not prepared to take Britain out of the EU without a deal. To do otherwise, she could and should say, is irresponsible. She could make it plain that she is prepared to delay the point of departure rather than leave on this basis. Instead, she is using the threat of no-deal as a bargaining chip. With the legislation in place to ensure departure on March 29, this could happen by default and accident. It is outrageous that Mrs May, who could say that it won’t be allowed, refuses to say so.
It is important to spell this out because this is the context in which Mr Corbyn’s Labour Party cannot manage a poll lead. There has been almost no change in voting intention since the June 2017 general election which, given the tumult, is an incredible statement. The government is, on every measure except voting intention, in a dire state. It has a net satisfaction rating of minus 45 which is similar to Gordon Brown after the 2008 crash or Mrs Thatcher during the poll tax. A majority of the public think the government is handling Brexit badly and the vast majority think the Tories are a divided party. Ratings like these have always before translated into a significant defect in voting intention. Not now.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Mr Corbyn’s slip-of-the-mind at PMQs on Wednesday was the latest instalment in his series of political failures. Britain is going through a fundamental discussion of its identity and its place and where is the leader of the opposition? On the rare days he shows up for work he has nothing to say. He is clearly the creature of warring advisers in his own entourage.
First he is tabling a motion of no confidence, though not the expected one, and then he isn’t. He wants a general election, he says, but not so much that he tries to get one. He knows that if he fails to secure a general election he would be forced to declare his hand on a second referendum, which he does not want to do. There are even whispers that Mr Corbyn might order his shadow ministers to abstain on Mrs May’s vote next month in the hope that it might sneak through.
Mr Corbyn’s is a less important abdication of leadership than Mrs May’s but it is even more complete. He has to come to a clear position on Europe eventually and he has to start sounding as if he cares. It is no wonder that his approval rating is minus 32, a long way behind the prime minister’s.
There is a lot of political game-playing to go. The Tories are such a rabble that they may yet succeed in giving power away. They will have to because Mr Corbyn is proving himself completely hopeless at taking it.
