Labour and Brexit

Jonathan Rutherford states a number of obviously incontrovertible points, but just because the country needs "national leadership, political resolve, and a strategy for a better country", does not necessarily lead to the conclusion he favours (Why the left should support Brexit, 24th November, 2017). It is noticeable that he omits any mention of the fact, stressed in the previous week`s Leader, that the country has been "betrayed by mendacious mediocrities such as Mr Johnson", and that the Brexit vote was only in part "a vote for the nation state", as many people voted to leave because it was a way of protesting against duplicitous politicians who had ignored vast swathes of the country for too long (Leader, 17th November, 2017).

       Rutherford wants Britain, apparently, to leave the EU because it "expands the opportunities of financiers, investors and high-skilled professionals", but that only happens because our leading politicians in the last thirty years have encouraged it; few will dispute that they have generally been either far too close to the City and financial institutions, or too easily influenced by  press and media barons. Kenneth Clarke openly admitted the latter recently. How can the greed of the multinational companies like Google and Apple ever be curtailed without European co-operation?

       Far from the public knowing  Labour to be "untrustworthy and not credible", it is Corbyn`s principled approach which has made him so popular. His policies to increase regulation, impose a fair system of taxation, and end the practice of investment being focused on the south-east, will be made far more difficult to achieve without trade with Europe, the inevitable consequence of the botched negotiations currently taking place. Corbyn also is clearly coming to the conclusion that the young people of this country, on whom much of his support relies, relish the opportunities the EU affords them, socially, educationally and economically. For purely political reasons, Corbyn has to oppose the hard Brexit into which the Tories are leading us; for the good of the country he has to consider a second referendum on the "deal" the Tories have in store for us.