Labour’s Brexit cop-out betrays its members

AS THE DEADLINEMP for Britain’s departure from the European Union approaches, with an exit deal still elusive, s are haring off in every direction. Parliament has descended into guerrilla warfare, as backbenchers attempt to wrestle the initiative from the executive (see ). Meanwhile the government organised a pretend traffic-jam of 89 lorries on the road to Dover, as part of preparations for a “no deal” exit. All it showed was that Britain is hopelessly unprepared for what happens next.Amid the chaos, on January 10th the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, stepped forward to propose a way out of the mess. Yet his speech, delivered as we went to press, merely doubled down on his policy of calculated equivocation. Labour will vote against the government’s draft Brexit deal on January 15th, but has no plausible explanation of how it would get a better one, nor a convincing strategy to break the impasse in Parliament if the deal is defeated. Its abdication of responsibility makes Labour complicit in the crisis that is about to engulf Britain. And it exposes the hollowness of Mr Corbyn’s promise that, as leader, he would hand power back to the party’s members, whose growing calls for a second referendum he continues to ignore.