Labour leapt into Brexit's fires - and now the party is burning

[Denzil_DC]

3. It's not all about Corbyn at this point. It's barely even about Labour any more.

T_i_B didn't even mention Corbyn (displaying admirable restraint!). I think I'm about to make up for that.

There's a vacuum on the broad left and among the Remain vote that isn't being filled. Where it is being filled, at a UK level it's largely the Lib Dems that are making the running, mainly by default.

Corbyn's shown no leadership on Brexit - the biggest fight we face - in the last year or so whatsoever. He had some excuse when there was the distraction of his leadership being challenged by those stupid, craven opportunists at precisely the worst time for us all. There's no excuse now.

I never bought into the line that he was a closet Leaver during the referendum campaign and deliberately hung back or even sabotaged the Remain campaign - all the evidence since has been that any public stand and appearance by any establishment leadership figure had a net negative effect on support for whatever campaign they were speaking for.

But any bets of mine started to be canceled on the morning after the vote when Corbyn immediately buckled rather than biding his time and letting the Tories get on with their embarrassing internecine warfare.

And then the attempted coup provided a handy distraction.

But now, I find his stances and those of the party leadership as a whole incomprehensible. Are they hoping to have it both ways - pay lipservice to Brexit while secretly hoping the whole escapade will collapse under the weight of its own impracticality, so the problem goes away and they can eventually reap the electoral rewards from the Tories' humiliation? They're more likely to go down with the same ship. Or worse, have they wholeheartedly bought in to the "the people have spoken, so over the cliff we all have to go" bullcrap?

I'm not clear how much blame for Corbyn's current lack of initiative can be laid solely at his feet, and how much it's to do with his trying to accommodate the timidity that's been apparent in the Labour upper echelons for a long time now, in some mistaken drive for parliamentary party unity after the leadership challenge he faced.

But there are only so many open goals he can miss at PMQs, only so many flatfooted responses like "The real fight starts now" immediately after three-line-whipping support for the Brexit vote, FFS, before he falls into self-parody. He fought for the role, he had overwhelming support. That's all done now, so when's he going to start leading? He had harsher words (and more laughably inaccurate criticisms, but that's by the by) for the SNP when he addressed the Scottish Labour Party Conference a couple of weeks ago than he's had for the Tories since to took over the leadership!

If Labour showed half the commitment and fire combating the Tories and Brexit that they did when they were knocking chunks out of each other last year, they might not be shedding members all over again right now.

I'll most likely never vote Labour again in my life. But I'd like to see it at least functional, because we desperately need an effective opposition, and there's only so much the SNP can do in Westminster to fulfil that role. And if Labour can't pull itself together in some operational form soon, it's better off disbanding or fragmenting, in the hope that something more functional might rise from the ashes.

Bargaining with and harping on about the Watsonite/McNicholite wing of Labour isn't going to get anywhere. I'm beyond tired, I think people in general are beyond tired, of the histrionics of Labour infighting. It was a not insignificant part of what all but killed them off in Scotland.

People, unless they're so cynical they're not likely to vote anyway, like to think politicians are looking out for them, not spending all their days jockeying for position and wasting valuable time on struggles that do nothing to improve anyone's life. But above all, they have to stand for something. I don't see the Jeremy Corbyn who used to stand for something anywhere at the moment. Where the hell did he go?