Thread: Labour's switch from soft Brexit to a second referendum with remain on the ballot did more to damage Labour than just alienate leave voters who wanted to leave the EU and felt they were entitled to see their vote carried out.
The switch in Brexit policy strengthened every line of attack against us and weakened us where we should have been strong: trust.
Corbyn is fearlessly honest. But when we switched to a second vote we made liars of our MPs and the triangulation made even remainers distrust us.
Corbyn is fearlessly honest. But when we switched to a second vote we made liars of our MPs and the triangulation made even remainers distrust us.
The Brexit policy switch also robbed us of our insurgency. Boris's rebelling against May meant he could cast himself as the man who was going to change Britian. While we became in the eyes of many the party that was defending the staus quo. No different from new Labour.
That collapse in voters trust crushed us. Trust in Labour was already a delicate thing being painfully rebuilt one conversation at a time on the doorstep after bad memories of new Labour's dodgy dossier and expenses.
With Corbyn visably pivoting and vote chasing he became, in the eyes of many voters just another politician who would say whatever he had to to win. Nothing he said could be believed. "They're all as bad as each other" I heard time and time again.
When accusations of antisemitism and terrorist sympathiser were levelled voters were no longer giving Corbyn or Labour the benefit of the doubt. Those attacks gained more traction and came up time and again in 2019 when they hadn't in 2017.
Rebel Labour MPs whose constant entitled, bleating in the press and on TV sofas day in day out for years was once seen as sour grapes was being taken more and more seriously.
Crucially where our manifesto was once a credible program of real change it became seen as an unbelievable wishlist of undeliverable bribes that would never be paid, because voters no longer believed the man promising to deliver them. They remembered he'd made promises before.
