Jeremy Corbyn scolded a Tory MP during his opening speech in the Commons debate on Theresa May’s Brexit Plan B, telling the backbencher that his intervention hadn’t added anything to the seriousness of the occasion. How odd, then, that the way the Labour leader conducted himself throughout his speech also ended up fitting that criticism perfectly.
The Labour leader’s response was dominated not by a careful critique of the Prime Minister’s strategy for getting a new Brexit deal agreed with European leaders and then accepted by the Commons, but by his petty refusal to take an intervention from a backbencher on his own side. Angela Smith, who has long been openly hostile to Corbyn, repeatedly stood up to ask him to give way. Corbyn repeatedly ignored her. To begin with, it appeared as though Corbyn was refusing to take any interventions at all.
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