“Straight talking, honest politics” was Jeremy Corbyn’s promise when he became leader of the UK’s Labour party three years ago. It captured a sense of hope that the new opposition leader would do things differently — a “kinder politics” to use another of his sound bites.
Yet the reality of a fresh approach turns out to be abandoning the role of effective opposition. The Labour party is providing little meaningful scrutiny on the main policy issue of the day, while its once strong moral core is withering away.
Its lack of a coherent strategy on Brexit was obvious on Tuesday during tense votes in the House of Commons. Theresa May squeaked through a vote on whether the UK should remain in a customs union with the EU, thanks to the support of a small band of Labour MPs. Had these four long-term Eurosceptics voted in line with the party, we could be facing the collapse of Mrs May’s government. True, those MPs oppose continued ties to Brussels for long-held reasons of their own, once common on the Labour left. But they missed an opportunity to do what oppositions do: oppose.