All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class. Tim Shipman
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even before he was recruited by Stronger In, Will Straw had written to Harman on 10 June saying this was a mistake. He pointed out that while association with the Conservatives in Scotland had been counterproductive, ‘Labour has the need to show economic credibility in England to gain votes from Conservatives. Part of our rehabilitation with the electorate could take place if our leadership shared a platform with respected centrist voices from other parties.’ He also warned, with some prescience, that ‘an isolated and underfunded “Labour Yes” campaign could potentially undermine efforts to keep Britain in the EU’, since failure to canvass and encourage ‘Labour voters in low-turnout areas’ could mean many would ‘not see the case for voting and stay at home’.
Straw was ignored, and Alan Johnson was put in charge of a totally separate ‘Labour In for Britain’ campaign. Johnson, the mild-mannered former home secretary, had been happily writing critically acclaimed memoirs and periodically resisting requests to lead a coup against Ed Miliband when he was asked to become the campaign’s chairman: ‘Hilary Benn and Harriet Harman nabbed me in the voting lobby and asked if I’d lead the campaign. I said I’ll lead it if it’s an unequivocal Remain campaign.’ Johnson asked Harman, ‘Do you want to wait until we have a new leader?’ and she replied, ‘No, let’s get going.’
Working with Johnson were Brian Duggan, a personable, ginger-haired Labour official who had worked with Labour MEPs, and Sam Bacon, who cut his teeth with Chris Bryant, one of the most pro-European members of the shadow cabinet.
When Johnson saw Corbyn’s equivocal comments at Warrington, he knew immediately that they could be a major problem, and was quick to demand clarity. He told the Observer that weekend: ‘The Labour Party ditched its anti-European stance in the mid-eighties, at the beginning of our long march back to electability. The membership has a right to know if any leadership candidate wants to take the party (and the country) back to its isolationist past.’1 Labour’s Europe spokesman, Pat McFadden, went further, suggesting that Corbyn was lining up ‘with Nigel Farage on a nationalist nostalgia trip.’2
After his appointment, Johnson saw three tasks ahead of him: ‘Our job in the campaign was to unite the party, to make the argument, to get the vote out. Johnson believed Corbyn was still an Outer: ‘I watched the leadership campaign with great interest. We all knew Jeremy was against [the EU]. He’s not changed his mind about anything since he was fifteen; why would he change his mind on that?’
When Corbyn won a landslide victory on 12 September, one of the priorities of his new frontbench colleagues was to get him to come clean about his views, and to use Labour’s annual conference to confirm the party’s pro-EU stance. ‘Jeremy had said, over the course of his leadership campaign, that he was unsure as to whether he would campaign to remain or leave,’ a Labour official said. ‘There was a mood from different sections in the party that he had to be clear about what his own personal position was.’
Corbyn was not just under pressure from the party establishment. His closest ally John McDonnell, who he was to appoint shadow chancellor, wanted him to keep Labour out of the referendum debate altogether until Cameron returned with his deal in February. A source who worked closely with Corbyn said, ‘John McDonnell was most hostile to the EU, and he would have been pleased if we’d been campaigning to leave. John argued forcefully that we should say nothing until February.’ Corbyn would have to choose. But despite his big win in the leadership election, the appointment of his first shadow cabinet was a shambles.
On Sunday, 13 September, amid farcical scenes, journalists were able to listen at the door of Corbyn’s office for news of the latest moves as one moderate frontbencher after another – including the leadership candidates Cooper and Kendall – announced that they would not serve in his shadow cabinet. Those who were prepared to stay on vowed to extract concessions on Europe.
Charlie Falconer, who met the new leader in the Commons office of Rosie Winterton, Labour’s chief whip, on the Sunday afternoon, was the first up. He said afterwards, ‘A very important part of the shadow cabinet formation, which Rosie orchestrated, was that a term of a lot of us joining was that Jeremy would support Remain in the European referendum. It was very well known that Jeremy’s attitude towards the European Union had always been that it was a capitalist club, which he opposed. When Corbyn asked him to be shadow justice secretary, Falconer said, ‘That’s ridiculous, because we disagree on Trident, we disagree on the European Union, we disagree on economic policy, we disagree on everything.’
Corbyn had run his campaign offering to paper over profound differences of approach with a ‘new politics’ in which debate would be encouraged and dissent allowed. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he told Falconer. ‘We’re going to be in a new era where you can all express your views.’ Still unconvinced, Falconer made it clear that on the EU, things had to go beyond free expression – the policy had to be adhered to: ‘The European Union issue is going to be a totally different issue. I can’t be in the shadow cabinet if the position is that we’re opposing or you’re opposing remaining in the European Union. It’s absolutely key.’ Corbyn’s answer was vague, but apparently affirmative: ‘That would be no problem.’ He suggested that he was prepared to support the Remain cause as a way of resisting right-wing policies.
Hilary Benn told Corbyn he would only serve as shadow foreign secretary in the same circumstances Falconer had outlined. Vernon Coaker and Luciana Berger took the same view, and secured Corbyn’s agreement that Alan Johnson would continue as the campaign chief.
Even after the arm-twisting, Corbyn still sounded unsure when he addressed a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party the following Monday evening, telling MPs, ‘We can’t just give Cameron a blank cheque.’ Fearing that the agreed position was already being eroded, Pat McFadden, the shadow Europe minister, made it clear that he would resign unless there was an unambiguous commitment to campaign to stay. On Wednesday, 16 September, the day of Corbyn’s first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions, his chief of staff Simon Fletcher suggested getting the top people together – Benn, McDonnell and Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary – to agree a joint position. The new leader returned to his office ‘really full of himself, his chest puffed out’, sat down with his arm draped over the back of the chair and promptly deferred to his shadow chancellor. Addressing McDonnell, he said, ‘John, do you want to take us through your logic on this?’
McDonnell observed that there had been media reports that the Tories wanted to water down employment rights. ‘In order to stop them from doing so we should take an anti-position on the referendum until we are satisfied it doesn’t have any of this stuff,’ he said. Corbyn’s closest ally was advocating backing Leave when the party had already been campaigning to remain for three months. Benn immediately exclaimed, ‘That is untenable! Conference has reasserted that we are a party for In. That’s not going to happen.’ McDonnell replied, ‘Fine, fine; we won’t take a position.’ But Eagle said, ‘We can’t not take a position.’ She warned, ‘We are going to lose unless we campaign.’ At this McDonnell ‘got really angry’, a source present said. ‘His jaw started jutting out. He did not want to be told he was wrong.’ Eventually Corbyn gave way, agreeing to a joint statement with Hilary Benn that ‘Labour will be campaigning in the referendum for the UK to stay in the European Union.’ Cynics noticed that Corbyn stopped short of saying he would personally campaign in that way.
In an attempt to make things more secure, the frontbenchers ensured that a line was written into a document called the ‘PLP briefing’, which gives statements some constitutional force, stating that Labour would campaign for Remain. Alan Johnson called the document ‘sacred, like the Dead Sea Scrolls of the party’.
The joint statement was written by Benn’s aide Imran Ahmed, who had devised a slogan to help frontbenchers memorise the case for staying in, which he called ‘JIGSI’ – jobs, investment, growth, security and influence in the world. In the months ahead Labour policy advisers became accustomed to Ahmed singing ‘Getting jigsy with it,’ and doing a dance to ram home the argument.
If Benn’s team thought they had