Corbyn: the sheen fades

It’s slightly embarrassing to watch a man not gifted with great wit trying to be clever. How much worse it is when he tries to be devious…

The assessment of Jeremy Corbyn that sticks most strongly in my mind is the journalist Nick Cohen’s: Corbyn’s a man “not overburdened with intellect”.

Jezza: not the sharpest knife in the drawer

His fans, on the other hand, see him as a new brand of politician opening a fresh perspective on the future. In particular, they regard him as a man of courage and principle but also, in a slightly contradictory way, as a wily political operator. These claimed qualities are never more clearly displayed than in his approach to Brexit.

There are constituencies, especially in the North of England, that Labour must hold if it is ever to form a government, where a majority of electors voted to leave the EU. On the other hand, Labour members are overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU, as is the majority of the electorate in a great many other Labour seats. Because he needs both groups, Corbyn has decided to take no position on Brexit, in the hope that neither will be put off by his backing the other.

This is a policy known by his admirers as “constructive ambiguity”. To most other people, it’s hypocritical opportunism: sitting on a fence in order to hang on to support from two camps without honestly backing either. To such critics, this stance simply means sacrificing principle to electoral calculation, and is distinctly short of either honesty or courage.

Indeed, his approach suggests that far from introducing any kind of innovation into politics, he’s just the same old, same old political calculator, who tries to be all things to all voters to try to win elections.

What’s worse, we know him to have been a lifelong Brexiter. It’s true that he campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU at the time of the 2016 referendum, but without any great enthusiasm. So there is a second suspicion about his ambiguity: that it may be a way of covering up his true hostility to the EU, which he dare not reveal in a party 80% of whose members take the opposite view.

Since he frequently claims to want to campaign only for policies endorsed by the membership, this too is seen as a stance not overburdened with bravery or integrity. It is also not likely to endear him to the majority in the party membership.

His reputation for wiliness is based predominantly on this careful triangulation over Brexit, designed to retain support from both sides of the debate. But, as I said before, being this devious requires brains. If intellect is not your strong suit, the deviousness becomes too obvious and, far from retaining support, it puts people off.

That’s precisely what’s happening today. While Corbyn was still the new kid on the block, and seen to be bringing a refreshingly innovative approach to politics, his support soared. That made Labour Europe’s biggest party, and propelled him to a far closer defeat by Theresa May’s Conservatives in 2017 than most of us had expected.

Today, though, the gloss is dimming fast. Many of those who joined the party at that time are remainers, and while they might have been in doubt about Corbyn’s true position on Brexit then, today they increasingly understand that he opposes their aspirations. So now they’re leaving in droves. The party’s still huge but it has begun to shrink.

No wonder people are losing faith in politics:
two unpopular main parties.
But Corbyn is taking Labour even lower than the Tories 

The same seems to be happening to Labour’s electoral support. A first poll finding that Labour was seven points behind the Conservatives was only a straw in the wind – a single poll can easily be an outlier. But then there came a second poll with a similar Tory lead; a third with the parties exactly tied; and a fourth with a five-point Tory advantage.

It’s looking as though the Conservatives are building a small but sustained lead.

The only surprising thing about that would be if anyone were surprised. Voters like strength. They like resolve. They certainly don’t like “creative ambiguity”, which they respond to as evasiveness.

Above all, many voters turned to Labour as a party that would oppose Brexit and the Tories’ stance. But now they see Corbyn offering nothing better than a different version of Brexit. No wonder their backing is dropping.

Not that the Conservatives are doing well either. Both parties are now well below the 40% level. In other words, they are both seen as discredited, untrustworthy and a less than attractive choice to lead the country. It’s just that under Corbyn, Labour’s seen as even less attractive than one of the most unpopular governments I have ever seen in Britain.

Ah, yes. There may have been some shine on the Corbyn phenomenon when he got started. But, boy, is it fading now.