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thesweetcheat wrote:
although I still doubt Labour would win a majority at present, their vacillating over which position to take on Brexit will have put a lot of people off.
They haven't vacillated. They have been consistently ambiguous. I think this reflects both that the Labour Party has moved to the left, and that this change is anything but uniform.

Who are they for? Originally, as I understand things, they were created as a workers and trades union movement, but were always a broad church. That breadth created internal tensions and power struggles over ideology. It has always drawn its following from a mix of the politicised working class and the progressive middle class. These groups have different agendas, and much of the vote for Brexit came from working class areas, to the continued bafflement and bemusement of many, while most of the push towards remain tended to come from the more cosmopolitan urban centres.

I suspect without the freak dynamic that led to Corbyn becoming leader, the Labour Party would have quickly aligned itself firmly in the Remain camp, partly because of political opportunism, but mainly because that's where it was and who it was for. The working class, the strongholds would vote for them anyway.

Yet Corbyn did become leader, and the forces that pushed him into that position have also been at work at every level of the Labour Party's organisational structure. Those forces have to be recognised. With a currently engaged grass roots pushing for deselections and changes to the political balance of the Labour Party's core structures, some of the changes being wrought will last for a good few years, although I think the wave of Corbyn-Mania has probably crested.

If the Labour Party has moved towards the working class, and the working class wants Brexit, it has a mandate, no matter how ill judged that mandate may be.

The question is of course, Why did so many of the hoi polloi vote for it in the first place? I'm not entirely convinced that half the country are gullible or racist or both.

"I'm not entirely convinced that half the country are gullible or racist or both."

Of course not, but 4% are and that has been enough to swing it and even now May is addressing them in particular.

I agree that if Corbyn hadn't been elected leader then labour would be firmly remain, the unfortunate point is is that Corbyn is rather anti-EU, remember he was the one saying A50 should be sent immediately on the day after the ref. This has created a huge level of confusion within labour who don't really know which side they're supposed to be representing (Remain or leave). This confusion has cost Labour a large number of potential votes and supporters.

During the last People's Vote march, Corbyn conveniently managed to send himself off to Geneva for a jolly. The post he made on Twitter on the day of the march telling people what he was doing was met with a great number of responses, all of them shunning him for not even being in the country to represent the largest movement in the country since the Iraq march.

Also there's the point that 86% of Labour members support remain, or a People's Vote. Corbyn is also ignoring them with his lack of support, although he promised to do otherwise with regard to members.

All polls online still point to the tories winning a GE, a large reason for this, I personally believe, is labour's lack of direction and support over leaving the EU.