The Labour left and Tory right agree on Brexit. Why don’t they merge?

Britain has not had a functioning opposition on the most vital question of the day ever since the Labour left and Tory right found they were in agreement on our future relations with the EU. Although both sides are too embarrassed to admit it, we are ruled by a Corbyn-Johnson pact. It will deliver a hard Brexit, whatever the costs to the country.

When Nigel Farage hailed Jeremy Corbyn as ‘almost a proper chap’ you learned that whatever trouble this hopelessly ill-equipped government faces it will never face trouble from the Labour leadership. The left has ceased to exist as an organised force in British politics, at least as far as the European question is concerned. In an article in the Guardian, which shocked even those of us who have never respected the Corbyn ‘movement,’ Barry Gardiner, Labour’s trade spokesman, explained the left was at one with the right in wanting to break all links with the EU.