Britain Pays the Price for Corbyn The Labour Party has neutered itself in an era-defining debate.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/britain-pays-the-price-for-corbyn-11566248428
Blame for most political failures surrounding Brexit rests with Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, but the past week has cast a new light on the ways the Labour opposition also is guilty of dereliction of duty. With the country in the grip of a once-in-a-generation governance crisis, Labour has opted out of serious participation.
That’s the meaning of a remarkable series of events in recent days in which even the politicians most staunchly opposed to Brexit have concluded that Brexit would be better than letting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister. Mr. Corbyn last week urged pro-Remain members of other parties to oust Boris Johnson ’s Tory government, which has a single-seat majority. The parliamentary putsch would install Mr. Corbyn as caretaker Prime Minister for long enough to delay Brexit and organize a general election. Yet no one took Mr. Corbyn up on his offer.
It’s hard to blame them. Mr. Corbyn can’t lead a “national unity government” when his economic platform is the most radical Britons have seen in two generations and his tolerance for anti-Semitism within Labour continues to shock voters. His personal views on Brexit, and Labour’s Brexit platform under him, are so confused that Remainers distrust him to lead. It’s not even clear that Mr. Corbyn, steeped as he is in the tactics and ethos of the radical left, could be trusted to relinquish power quickly under an anti-Brexit parliamentary maneuver if he became Prime Minister.
Mr. Corbyn’s radicalism and the distrust he triggers are neutering Labour when the party most needs to serve its political function of loyal opposition. Britain’s best political course now is to roll the dice and honor the wish of the 52% of voters who chose to leave the European Union in 2016’s referendum. But 48% disagreed, and it’s unhealthy if they conclude no one in London has represented their interests in debates over what form Brexit should take.
That’s a recipe for political trauma that could linger for years after Brexit is resolved. This is the danger when a party, especially a party of the left defined by the uses of state power, veers toward the fringes and leaves the rest of its country behind.
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