Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit betrayal is complete

Let us consider the gravity of Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that Labour will push for a second referendum. In siding with the so-called People’s Vote lobby, Corbyn has betrayed Labour’s traditional working-class base, who tend to favour leaving the EU. He has betrayed his party’s own manifesto in the 2017 general election, which promised to respect the outcome of the referendum. He has betrayed his old Labour mentors, most notably his hero Tony Benn, who was the left’s most articulate critic of the EU. And he has betrayed himself. He has betrayed his own longstanding and correct belief that the EU is an illiberal, undemocratic, anti-worker outrage of an institution. Has any politician ever betrayed so many people in such a short space of time?

Labour has confirmed that if it fails to win the approval of the Commons for its own version of Brexit — which it almost certainly will — then it will push for a public vote. For a vote in which people will have a choice between some kind of Brexit and Remain. So: a second referendum. A reboot. A do-over. A cajoling of the ignorant masses to rethink the apparently imbecilic, racist decision we made in 2016 and to give the ‘right’ answer this time. As Emily Thornberry has confirmed, Remain would be an option in a Labour-backed second referendum and the Labour Party would actively campaign for Remain. Consider what this means: in defiance of the largest democratic vote in UK history, in defiance of millions of its own voters, Labour would knowingly campaign for the opposite of the thing that 17.4m of us voted for in 2016. It would campaign to ensure that our choice, our democratic choice, was never enacted. Anyone in Labour who believes in democracy must now seriously consider leaving this anti-democratic party.