It looks like the well-meaning Corbyn's legacy could be left in tatters - but there is one final way he can turn it around

The Opposition leader faces a cruel end to his political career - but he still has the chance to change the narrative on Europe, where Remain voters trust him far and away above George Osborne or Theresa May

Jeremy Corbyn has launched an independent inquiry into antisemitism in the party (Getty Images)

Jeremy Corbyn must wake up some days and wonder if it has all been a particularly vivid bad dream.

A man who has devoted his life to delivering his vision of a more decent society, whose own mother protested against fascists at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, now finds himself accused of presiding over an upsurge of antisemitic feeling within the ranks of the Labour Party.

The independent inquiry announced last week – led by the respected human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti – is a belated but positive step by the Labour leader. But it will not be the end of this sorry episode.

Meanwhile, Labour could be heading for some bruising defeats in Thursday’s local elections. On current polling, it could face at least one and possibly several of the following damaging scenarios: losing overall control of the Welsh Assembly; slipping into third place in Scotland; and losing around 100 council seats in England at a time in the electoral cycle when the Opposition usually wins big.

Sadiq Khan’s likely victory in London will ease the pain, while Unite union boss Len McCluskey’s warning to Labour plotters over a potential leadership challenge has probably settled nerves for now.

But the overall picture is of a Labour leader with a precarious hold on power, who on current form could go down as one of the worst in the party’s history.

Leaving a party internally divided and down in the polls is not the legacy Corbyn would have hoped for. It would also be a cruel end to a career that, for all its missteps, has been so clearly driven by a belief in the power of politics to do some good for people.

But there is one thing he could still do to change that narrative. What if history remembered him not as a curious footnote in the Labour story, but as the leader who kept Britain in the EU?

It is perhaps far-fetched.

Corbyn is no lover of the Brussels system. For much of his political career he has viewed the EU as a vehicle for the type of free market wealth creation which, he believes, lies behind the social inequality he so passionately abhors.

He has, in leadership, come around to the idea of EU membership, but only insofar as it represents a restraining influence of the Conservatives’ power to undo workers’ rights in the UK.

But the irony is that this most reluctant of Remain campaigners is also the individual with probably the greatest potential to secure votes to stay in.

A telling ORB poll last week showed the electorate split 50/50 on the referendum question. But when Leave voters’ higher likelihood of actually turning out was taken into account, the balance slipped in favour of Brexit.

This fact needs to be viewed alongside other recent poll findings, from GQRR, which showed that around two thirds of Labour voters back Remain, but that only slightly more than half are ‘very likely’ to vote.

In essence, the Remain campaign can give up now on persuading those set on voting Leave to change their minds. What is needed is for all those shy Labour voters to get to the polling booth on referendum day.

And who, according to the GQRR poll, is the most trusted individual among Labour voters in this debate? It certainly isn’t the Prime Minister, or George Osborne, or Theresa May. It is Jeremy Corbyn.

If he really believes in our EU membership, then he should haul himself out of the doldrums and start campaigning hard. Momentum, the campaign group born out of his leadership campaign, has so far remained silent on the EU. They will meet after the local elections to decide a national strategy. If Corbyn speaks out with passion on the issue, so will their thousands of campaigners.

There are more than a few people in the corridors of power in both London and Brussels beginning to whisper darkly about what Brexit would mean for Europe.

They predict that Britain leaving would mark the beginning of the end of the EU. It would galvanise nationalist separatist movements across the continent, at a time when the refugee crisis is already fuelling a frightening resurgence of the far-right.

It sounds far-fetched but it's true: if Jeremy Corbyn can win those Labour votes for Remain, he could justifiably say he helped avoid the break-up of the EU, with all the unpredictable consequences that holds for peace and stability in our time.

What better legacy for a man who has fought against fascism, and for peace, his entire life?