Labour’s slipperiness and lack of leadership on Brexit must have John Smith turning in his grave

By refusing to back a second referendum, Jeremy Corbyn will gift votes in the European elections to the Lib Dems, the Greens and Change UK

When will Labour smell the coffee? Ever since the party made it clear it wants elites, not the people, to decide the UK’s future in Europe, its support in opinion polls has declined. Labour now trails miserably behind Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

Of course the party will get its share of MEPs, but from the point of view of Labour MEP candidates further down the list, it must be galling to see how their party leadership’s approach to Brexit is going to guarantee a good number of Lib Dem and Green MEPs when only a short while ago both parties were flat on their backs.

Labour has insisted on putting up as main spokespeople on Europe shadow cabinet members like Richard Burgon or Barry Gardiner. They may have qualities in some areas of politics but not even their closest friends and admirers would give them much out of 10 when it comes to persuading voters on the question of Brexit.

At its 2018 party conference rank and file delegates supported by key trade unions adopted a formal policy resolution stating: “Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote.”

This was not contingent on May’s unworkable Brexit deal, or some putative future Labour deal. To my mind, it was a clear instruction to start “campaigning for a public vote”.

But the closest advisers to Corbyn, who share his 30-year long rejection of European Union norms and values – Corbyn has after all voted against every EU Treaty since entering the Commons in 1983 – as well as the key union, Unite, have spent the last eight months sidelining this commitment.

As Jeremy Corbyn said last week at the formal launch of Labour’s European parliament election manifesto: “We accept Brexit. If we can’t get a sensible deal, along the lines of our alternative plan, or a general election, Labour backs the option of a public vote.”

The party has put two major hurdles in the way of allowing the people to decide – Labour’s wishful thinking on having single market access without abiding by its rules, and a general election.

The same message was agreed by Labour’s ruling National Executive Council a few days before the local government elections on 3 May. The response was instantaneous. Labour voters switched to Lib Dem and Green candidates and as a consequence Labour lost councillors.

To be sure, the headline figure was the big loss of 1,300 Tory council seats. But Labour also lost councillors, which is without precedent nine years into a Conservative government that since 2010 has imposed significant cuts in public services, tripled student fees and with Theresa May has the most unpopular prime minister in living memory.

Now Labour MEP candidates are campaigning with their hands tied. They ask people to vote Labour to stop Farage – the same appeal as Lib Dems, Greens or Change UK. But asking people to support a negative – defeating Farage – is not enough. The biggest single demand emerging on Brexit is that the people should decide, not Westminster elites.

This morning on the Today programme Tom Watson again climbed back onto the Corbyn side of the fence calling the Labour leader “a great man”. Watson said that while Labour wants a vote on May’s deal he couldn’t tell the presenter that Labour would trust the people as a matter of principle on staying in or leaving the EU – “not ruling it out, not ruling it in” – as Watson fell back on modern politics’ preferred equivocation.

I knew and worked with the late John Smith on European issues and was the last MP he introduced into the Commons in 1994. Smith defied Harold Wilson and Labour’s anti-European leadership in the early 1970s to vote for British entry into Europe. This was about the same time Jeremy Corbyn was forming his political views, in line with Tony Benn’s hostility to Europe and the belief that socialism in one country, the UK, was the way forward.

Smith must be turning in his grave at Labour’s slipperiness and lack of leadership on Europe. Voters will tell us on Thursday week if they are persuaded by Labour’s current line. Good Labour candidates who watch Lib Dem, Green even Change UK MEPs take their seats in the European parliament will rightly ask why Labour allowed this to happen.

Denis MacShane was a Labour MP for 18 years and a former Europe minister. His book ‘Brexeternity: The Fate of Britain’ is due to be published this August