Letters | 16 May 2019

Labour’s fence-sitting

Sir: James Forsyth writes that Mrs May and Mr Corbyn are ‘not, in fact, that far apart’ (‘May’s compromising position’, 11 May). To many, the Labour left is simply playing its very old game of sitting on the fence over the EU. The electorate have spotted it, and Labour paid for it in the local elections.

Some of us are old enough to remember Harold Macmillan’s withering mockery of the Labour attitude to the then Common Market in the early 1960s. It recalls the words of the old song: ‘She didn’t say yes and she didn’t say no; she didn’t say stay and she didn’t say go!’

The reason for Labour’s contorted behaviour was the same then as now. The European Movement is basically Christian Democratic, and Labour’s left wing, particularly now under Corbyn, cannot in the end be doing with any of that. Unfortunately, large parts of his party do not agree.