I agree with Jeremy: Brexit has been settled

It was hard to disagree with anything in the Labour leader’s speech: whether we like it or not, this election is not going to be about Britain’s relationship with the EU

Corbyn is right to say: ‘The question now is what sort of Brexit do we want – and what sort of country do we want Britain to be after Brexit?’ (EPA)

Jeremy Corbyn has been packaged and presented about as well as he can be. In his speech to launch Labour’s election campaign in Manchester, his tie was straight, he stuck to the text of the speech on the prompter, with a few polished ad libs, and even delivered a rather theatrical, rehearsed line: “It makes me angry.”

Most of his speech was general left-wing rhetoric, attacks on a system rigged in favour of the rich and a defence of public services. It wasn’t exactly a centre-ground pitch to swing voters: it was a defensive speech designed to secure the Labour core vote. But there wasn’t much in it that was specific enough to put floating voters off.

Except for one section. He said: “This election isn’t about Brexit itself. That issue has been settled.” This is a line that went down badly with many people who would otherwise be sympathetic to Labour but who want Corbyn to oppose Brexit and to try to reverse it. Although I disagree with Corbyn on many things and wish he weren’t Labour leader, I think he is quite right about this.

Even if the election were about Brexit, Corbyn would be right to accept the result of the referendum. There are people in the Labour Party, and even former leaders of it, who would rather Corbyn had adopted the same position as Tim Farron, who wants another referendum on the terms of the Brexit deal. But there are arguments of pragmatism and of principle against it.

Pragmatically, an anti-Brexit message doesn’t appeal to enough voters. But in principle it is a terrible idea: if we were to have another vote on whether to stay in the EU or leave on the terms offered, it would ensure that the EU 27 would offer us the worst terms possible. That was one of the reasons it was agreed in advance that the referendum would be a single, irreversible decision.

Typically, no sooner had I written this than Corbyn managed to render clarity unclear, by refusing seven times in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC Political Editor, to confirm that Britain would “definitely leave” the EU under a Labour government.

Corbyn is also right, however, that the election is not “about Brexit itself”, despite Theresa May calling it on those grounds – saying that Labour had threatened to sabotage Brexit when the talks reach their conclusion. The EU referendum vote, by cutting across party loyalties, certainly helped May to recruit working-class Leavers to her new electoral coalition. It also helped the Lib Dems win the Richmond Park by-election, by mobilising hardcore Remainer sentiment. But most people will not be voting on Brexit on 8 June. The Lib Dem revival in the opinion polls has been remarkably modest so far. And the most striking figure from yesterday’s ICM poll is that, among people who voted last year to remain in the EU, the Conservatives have a two-point lead over Labour (37 to 35 per cent).

The election is “about Brexit” only in the indirect sense that the voters tend to look to May as the leader they want to negotiate it. She is seen as strong by Leavers and Remainers alike. So Corbyn is right to say: “The question now is what sort of Brexit do we want – and what sort of country do we want Britain to be after Brexit?”

Unfortunately for him, the answer the British people are likely to give is that they want the post-Brexit Britain that Theresa May is offering. She has used the disruption of Brexit to launch a smash-and-grab raid on Labour territory. She is unembarrassed by politicians and journalists pointing out that she has copied Ed Miliband’s policy to keep gas and electricity prices low. A Conservative (sorry, Theresa May’s Team) prime minister pursuing Labour policies is electoral gold-dust, and she knows it.

She is even less bothered by criticisms of her cap on energy prices as economically illiterate, including quotations from Tory attacks on Miliband’s version of the policy. This is an election, and any politician knows that the laws of economics are suspended for the duration of the campaign.

For what it is worth, Corbyn’s promise to end hospital car park charges is less economically foolish than the Prime Minister’s plan for the government to set energy prices. It might be possible in practice to prevent hospitals providing free parking for local shoppers by restricting it to patients and their visitors, but the energy price cap will only distort the market and discourage investment.

So there you go. Jeremy Corbyn: right about Brexit and not as wrong as Theresa May about free markets. What a strange election campaign this is.