Foolish and self-serving

Corbyn is no Obama on the hustings but in my view his was one of the more reasoned and truthful contributions to the debate.

It’s my guess that many, if not most, of those who voted Leave last Thursday had made up their minds some time ago.

The ground for their seismic decision was prepared over many years by the selfishness, greed and stupidity of those members of our political and economic elites whose idea of how to run a country was to help themselves to an ever-increasing share of the national cake.

While the rich and powerful stuffed themselves, those who were reduced to hoping for crumbs were treated with condescension or contempt.

The worm has turned.

The ruling classes gave millions of British citizens little more than a choice between two dysfunctional systems and a majority chose to reject the remoter one.

I don’t agree with their conclusion, but I understand it.

Indeed, I find myself close to admiring how the infantry of the dispossessed and disgruntled gained its objective under withering fire from the intellectual and moral high ground occupied by the Remain campaign.

The Leave camp was partly led by unscrupulous demagogues and xenophobes but it also contained many ordinary people, most of them natural Labour supporters.

The challenge for the party is how to convince these voters that despite Labour’s efforts to dissuade them from doing what they did, their futures would be better secured by a Labour government than by whatever regime emerges from the shambles of the Tory Party.

Those snapping at Jeremy Corbyn’s heels should desist.

If the Labour leader had been a cross between Nye Bevan and Demosthenes he would still have failed to alter the outcome of the referendum.

What we need now is careful analysis and calm discussion.

Kevin Hanson

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