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I have always been reluctant to talk about Brexit and between 2016 and 2019 I just hoped that it wouldn& #39;t derail the left& #39;s attempt to revive Labour as an institution capable of governing. 1/
FWIW, it seems the correct approach from the point of view of the electoral arithmetic in 2019 would have been to respect the referendum. It would have been a clear message to convey to people who aren& #39;t easily reached by whatever communicative assets the left could create. 2/
"Labour respects democracy - and wants you to have more power and control over your lives. Besides, the Tories can& #39;t get Brexit done. We can." But there were deeper problems. First, we had no communicative means to explain that position to left-remain. 3/
Key elements of Corbyn& #39;s coalition were drawn away into the dead end of campaigning for a second referendum in the absence of a communicative infrastructure that could have held them together around a radical policy offer. 4/
Much of left remain might have been kept in the tent if the choice between the Conservatives and hard Brexit on the one hand and Labour, a soft Brexit and a social democratic revival on the other had been made clear. 5/
But how would that have been achieved? Where was the constellation of media operations - blogs, animators, film makers, etc. - that could have made that a kind of common sense in left remain circles between 2017 and 2019? 6/
In its absence the idea that support for Brexit was intrinsically racist was bedded down. A strange situation for a Bennite leader to preside over. 7/
Second, much of the PLP would have rebelled against this position. Not out of principle, but because it would have been a way of heading off the threat of a Corbyn victory. The desperate effort to head off a split after the 2017 result look like a major mistake in retrospect. 8/
Once again Labour& #39;s self-styled moderates are teaching the radicals a lesson: there can be no half measures. 9/
