Jeremy Corbyn yesterday made a perfectly sensible speech setting out very good reasons why Labour voters and supporters should vote to remain in the EU. It was an intelligent speech, full a sensible analysis and opinion, which should attract widespread attention. But will it?
Perhaps not as much as it should because this Referendum is not being either conducted or reported at a sensible level. The media are understandably obsessed by the brutal civil war being waged by opposing wings of the Tory party, led by Boris for Out and Dave for In, which operates on sound-bites offering wild promises which cannot be delivered, while stoking ever more fear among voters who are ever more confused and of whom only a tiny handful wanted this contest in the first place. A rational and cerebral Corbyn stumping the country laying out the very real advantages to working people of EU membership and very real risks to jobs and prosperity, at least in the short term, of leaving, is just not big news.
Where I think all the politicians fail is that the EU is not about trade or jobs. It is about bringing harmony, fellowship, open borders and freedom to live and work wherever you want, ending centuries of struggle and strife costing millions and millions of lives. The one time, during the very many acts of remembrance of the fallen, and especially during the centenary commemorations for WWI, it is possible to feel that all that suffering and sacrifice just might have been worth it, is when one marvels at the extraordinary achievement of reconciliation which is the EU. To vote to leave is to betray the sacrifice of those before us, who have given us such a much better deal than the one that cost them their lives.
Labour MPs privately fear that Mr Corbyn’s lacklustre campaign risks handing victory to the Brexit campaigners.