Don’t worry, Labour’s position hasn’t really changed – a second referendum is still firmly on the cards

Sources close to the Labour leadership confirmed that the party will only advocate for a referendum on a ‘damaging Tory Brexit’. Well, currently, that’s the only deal in town

Calm down. Jeremy Corbyn is essentially a cushion who bears the impression of the last bottom that sat on him. Due to their close proximity that is usually that of his Svengali Seumas Milne, but not exclusively. It now seems that some of the more intractable elements in the shadow cabinet have had a go too.

Hence The Independent exclusive that the Labour leader is shuffling, crab-like, away from the pledge he gave only a few days ago to support a second referendum. This would, it bears repeating, give the British people the Final Say on the terms of Brexit. It is essential, as Labour members (especially in Momentum), MPs and probably the majority of the shadow cabinet realise, because it is the only thing that stands between many of their constituents and redundancy.

Sources close to the Labour leadership confirmed that the party is not advocating a referendum on anything other than a “damaging Tory Brexit” and will not support one if Britain leaves the EU on terms that Labour supports. This is disappointing because it subtly but firmly moves the party away from the democratic imperative, as well as from its own policy defined at its conference last autumn.

The reality is that the only version of Brexit that is likely to appear on a ballot paper is indeed the “damaging Tory Brexit”, or, to give it its proper name, the UK-EU withdrawal agreement and the political declaration on the future relationship between the UK and the EU. You can call it what you want, but it is the only deal in town, the only one that actually exists.

As the prime minister virtually admits in her speech, the agreement that she and the EU actually did sign at a special meeting of the European Council on 25 November 2018 is the only one in existence. When people say that “negotiations are ongoing” they’re wrong. The negotiations were completed on 25 November. What we are going through now is a charade, a re-negotiation, an annexe to the talks, a post-negotiation exercise in clarification – a waste of time. It won’t work either on the EU side or the ERG side in the House of Commons.

At worst, entering the domain of the unicorns for a moment, if parliament agreed to put to the EU a Norway-style arrangement, say, including a customs union, and the EU agreed to talk about it and then agreed to it, then that new deal should, as with the May deal, be put to the people, with the Remain option also on the paper. That remains the democratic imperative and would mean the softest of soft Brexits (and one so inferior to the current terms of our membership to not make it worthwhile). It won’t happen, though.

Theresa May has failed to reach out to potential allies in other parties. Her attempt to bribe Labour backbenchers with more public spending has been thrown back in her face by most of them as an insult to their intelligence. Her hardliners humiliate her every day. The EU is sticking to the agreement it has already signed and which she put her name to. No-deal Brexit is about to be ruled out. This is the endgame. There is only one way out – put it to the people.