Andy_W
Well-known member
This story that Corbyn's position on brexit was as 'clear as mud' was absolute lies and spin, perpetrated by his opponents both inside and outside of the party. It used to annoy me whilst listening to 5Live when callers repeated this myth and and the hosts were either complicit or too lazy to correct them. Elsewhere his ideas were understood and accepted.
EU favours Corbyn 'deal' as a solution to the Brexit stalemate
“There is growing support at EU level for the vision of Brexit being presented by the leader of the UK opposition, Labour's Jeremy Corbyn.”
“His proposal includes keeping the UK in a customs union with the EU, a move that would help ensure no return to a hard Border.”
“Mrs May has still to outline exactly what "alternative arrangements" she wants to the backstop that she already agreed with the EU. The prime minister is believed to have used last night's meeting to explain her desire for legally binding changes to the Brexit deal. This has been repeatedly ruled out in recent days by Mr Varadkar and a series of key EU leaders.”
“Sources believe that if any deal is to get through the UK parliament, it will need cross-party support. "We are still very much in the party politics perspective. The only hope is that, at some point, the threat of 'no-deal' disruptions would mobilise minds in the UK," said an EU diplomat.
"For now, May is still looking at her own party rather than a nationwide consensus.””
“Mr Varadkar described the Corbyn plan as "very interesting"."I think what Jeremy Corbyn has done is fleshed out a potential future relationship which is one that would mean a future relationship that is very close between the European Union and the United Kingdom, and I think in that regard they are very interesting," he said."But ultimately when dealing with these matters I deal with the democratically elected government of the United Kingdom and that is headed by prime minister May.”"
It was Starmer who without the knowledge of Corbyn or McDonnell, deviated from his written conference speech and and announced that Labour were the party of remain and floated the idea of a second referendum, which spooked the brexiteers and ultimately cost Labour the red wall.
Was there any stories from the UK, or before Feb 2019? Most had given up on JC long before Feb 2019, it was far too late by then.
From 2016 - 2019 I wasn't convinced in the slightest that he was pro-remain, but hid did slightly change tide in 2019, but that was three years too late, and a load of people had given up hope by then. Everyone knew in late 2018 that May was going out, and some hardcore no-deal fool was going to replace her.
The summary from the article below mentions:
History of Euroscepticism
On the day after the referendum, Mr Corbyn said his party would “accept the vote and move on”, and a few weeks later, explicitly ruled out a second referendum, saying “you have to respect the decision people made.”
Mr Corbyn moved closer to an actively pro-Brexit stance in March 2017, instructing Labour MPs to vote to trigger Article 50 using the strongest tool at his disposal, a three-line whip.
And in the spring, Labour’s election manifesto committed to a “jobs-first Brexit” in which Britain would “keep the benefits” of single market and customs union membership. In other words, the party intended to leave the EU with a deal.
In November 2017, Labour whipped MPs to vote against a parliamentary amendment to keep the UK in the single market and customs union.
Despite supporting a move to leave the single market and customs union (which has been associated with “harder” forms of Brexit), Mr Corbyn seemed to flirt with the remainer-friendly idea of a second ballot in the final months of 2017.
That December, he said “we’ve not made any decision on a second referendum,” which some commentators took to mean a policy announcement was due.
Yet in January 2018, he asserted that Labour was “not supporting or calling for a second referendum.”