A small flood of polls released over the past few days show Labour opening a significant lead over the Tories as the Conservatives’ vote share crashes:
The polling suggests the Tories are leaking support back to UKIP as a result of Theresa May’s disastrous week regarding her Brexit plans and the resignation of a huge part of what passes for her Brexit team.
But the absence of any LibDem bounce shows that contrary to the claims of ‘stop Brexit’ obsessives and in spite of their “People’s Vote” march coverage this month, there is currently no electoral gain in adopting an anti-Brexit stance.
The results vindicate – yet again – Corbyn’s highly intelligent and nuanced approach to the thorny Brexit issue.
By refusing, on the one hand, to be drawn into detailed policy commitments that assume developments only the foolish would predict, he has allowed the Tories’ innate fault lines, incompetence and personal ambitions and inadequacies to tear them apart and expose their bankruptcy of ideas – leaving May no choice but to adopt a position guaranteed to fall foul of the Conservatives’ hard right, with nobody for the Tories to blame but themselves.
And by refusing to allow himself to be painted into a corner by the ‘FBPE’ crowd on the other, he has demonstrated to those who voted leave that he is not willing to ignore their concerns or abandon them to the hard right – as well as exposing the absolute foolishness of those who claim that Labour would somehow sweep into power against all parliamentary rules and electoral mathematics, if only Corbyn would adopt their position.
This is a continuation of Corbyn’s savvy handling of the issue last year, which saw Labour take significant portions of the collapsing UKIP vote in the general election and made a major contribution to the ‘Corbyn surge’ that destroyed Theresa May’s majority and set in train the current Tory implosion.
Labour’s position has held steady while the Tories have tumbled – but at the end of months of Establishment smears, in the midst of so-called centrists coming out to shore up May’s floundering government and in the absence of the less biased coverage a general election brings, holding steady and watching the Tories go backward is remarkable.
Comment:
The news will not, of course, prevent the usual die-hard anti-Brexiter suspects from continuing to insist Corbyn would be PM tomorrow if only he would agree with them – but it does expose the foolishness of their claim and the wisdom of Corbyn’s far more nuanced and strategic approach.
The huge numbers of people suffering the predations of the Tories in government should be very thankful he’s too smart to fall into his opponents’ traps – and those who care strongly one way or the other about Brexit should be glad there’s one party leader who is fighting intelligently for the best interests of all the UK’s people, whichever side of the Brexit issue they’re on.
Of course, the next smear will now almost certainly be rushed out soon.
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