Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit Ambiguity and the Idea of a National Government

Jeremy Corbyn keeps insisting he is a PM in waiting and for another election, though he would be best off not pushing that too hard at the present due to voting fatigue and because Brexit is a poisoned chalice. As Larry Elliott puts it 'the Tories own it', so it would be best to ascertain what's on offer from the EU.

The danger to Corbyn could that splits are opining up with the PLP over Brexit, as much of the 'right' of the party still resent his being leader and would prefer a 'soft Brexit' to soft that it doesn't amount to Leave. The voting base is divided between working class Leavers and middle class Remainers or Soft-Brexit 'Re-Leavers'.

Corbyn has hedged his position on Brexit. His middle class leftist populism has him as a radical totem pole for those wanting 'a different and better world' and to campaign 'as if' Brexit was secondary. He's offering a socialist commonweal as a substitute for a resurgent British patriotism and Global Empire 2.0 vision.

That is useful for fudging Brexit and tacking towards social and economic transformation as the only way forward to remove the grievances that led to Brexit. A socialist millennium would offer 'hope' and a substitute for the radical right wing populism of UKIP and the right-wing of the Conservative Party.

The new bourgeois Corbynites in the PLP have embraced the vision as it's roused dormant youthful radical dreams. This is one reason Peter Mandelson celebrated the 'political earthquake' of Corbyn's relative success in challenging May. But much of the vote was about sabotaging Theresa May's 'give me the mandate'.

The scene is set in the second part of 2017 for some vicious cultural warfare. This is why the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for a National Government to heal divisions over Brexit. The right of Labour would be positioning themselves in this regard with the left of the Tories to have a National Unity Government.

This National Government could be pushed by those comparing 2017 to 1931 and the impact of the Great Depression and the threats of dangerous political polarisation. The problem with it is it would be seen as part of a plot to downgrade and exclude not just the Tory right but also as a move against the anti-Establishment Corbyn.