Jeremy Corbyn has faced down a challenge spearheaded by his deputy, Tom Watson, for Labour to signal its unequivocal backing for a second Brexit referendum in the forthcoming European election campaign...In a move that sparked an immediate backlash among remain-supporters, Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC), announced that its manifesto for the election would be “fully in line” with its longstanding policy....Corbyn is keen to avoid Labour being pigeon-holed as a remain party, not least because he hopes to make significant gains at Thursday’s local elections, including in Brexit-supporting areas.
Undaunted,el Graun still has an editorial on how to vote at the local elections tomorrow. No doubt it would have supported Labour -- but now? Can no charismatic politician appear at last to speak for Providence?
Brexit is coming about not because government or MPs want it but because the people chose it [unusually frank -- but wait, they don't really want it] and are said still to want it. What they chose and what they are now offered is less clear than ever. May’s local council, mayoral and European elections offer a window for politicians to re-engage the population about Brexit, listening to their concerns and priorities [and above all, lecturing them about how wrong they were, as we shall see].
Mainstream politicians have to hear what people are saying; they need to test – and if necessary reshape – their arguments; they must balance the people’s wishes with the security of the nation [ always a major interest for the Guardina]. Instead, the Labour party is split over Brexit and has its work cut out covering the ever-widening cracks in its fragile coalition. The Conservatives’ poll numbers are in freefall; they have resigned themselves to devastating losses in the local elections and are running scared at the thought of European elections. So low are expectations for the Liberal Democrats that the party’s leader announced his departure before the vote...MPs have been unable to craft a deal, and yet there is only limited engagement with both Brexit’s defenders and its detractors.
The Guardian prophesies more extreme politics, given the failure to compromise, which is, of course, a defeat for common sense, leaving only nasty irrationalism. There is, correspondingly, still the need for some personal abuse:
Unless there is compromise, the options look like narrowing to a no-deal Brexit, a parliamentary revocation of article 50 or another vote...This is a dangerous moment in which arch-nationalist politics can flourish.[ie they think they might lose]. The absence of debate [Jesus! When was that?] creates the conditions for rightwing populists, and for their racism and authoritarianism. Nigel Farage absurdly poses as the champion of democracy...Even worse lurks in the local elections, where the narrative of betrayal sees voters drifting back to the UK Independence party, which now retails hate speech alongside batty ideas about the purifying effect of a clean Brexit. Waiting in the wings is Boris Johnson, for whom Brexit is a way of finally conquering the Tory party. It ought to be transformed into his route to the margin of political life. The other underwhelming narcissists who subsume the nation to their own egos should join him there.
We need a nicer more emotional kind of policy instead -- or is it some kindly patronising lecturing?
Politicians need to come clean about the costs of pursuing Brexit – about how it is likely to render poorer many of those places that voted leave; about how it risks peace in Ireland; about the awkward task of redefining the national interest, and trying to give it new meaning while preserving the integrity of the UK. Instead, amid indifference and confusion, [not to mention downright opposition to these views] politicians have dodged the problem of Brexit.
No need to engage with concerns and problems after all, then -- the Gurdians already knows the solution. There is a bit of realpolitik:
They ought to instead re-engage in these polls, by first organising the millions of EU citizens who have most to lose from Brexit and need to be registered to vote in a week’s time for European elections
The final message from Aunty is this:
Politicians have not found a way out; they will only do so by reconnecting with the public.
In order to bore the pants off them by banging on and on again.
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