'If Labour performs as well as it did in 2017 and Johnson suffers the same loss of support May did for failing to deliver Brexit, Corbyn will have a shot at the job, either with a majority or in coalition with smaller parties.' Photo: PA

Yet another Brexit deadline passed last week. Instead of Brexit, Britain is getting a general election. At a time when the two big British parties have moved ever further away from the centre ground of politics and public opinion is so volatile, the outcome of our neighbour's December 12 election is impossible to predict. But, whatever happens, there will be implications for this island.

The prospects of the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, becoming prime minister are viewed as remote by many commentators and bookies. Yet much stranger things have happened in British politics over the past half-decade - including Corbyn winning the party leadership in 2015 when even his own small group of hard leftists nominated him more as a token than with any real belief he could win.

There are two reasons to believe Labour will do much better than its current support levels suggest. The first is Corbyn's campaigning history. He was derided and dismissed before the 2017 election and his poll ratings were on the floor when it was called. But over the course of the campaign his support surged. At the election, the Conservatives only marginally out-polled Labour.

Brexit will, of course, be an important issue in the campaign, but it won't be the only one. And that will benefit Corbyn because polls show Britain has moved sharply to the left on many issues and the traditional Conservative message of a leaner state and self-reliance appears to have gone out of fashion.

The second reason to believe Labour will do better than expected is because the Conservatives are unlikely to do as well as recent polls suggest. Theresa May and her party had quite stable levels of support between the 2017 election and last spring. That all changed when the March 31 Brexit deadline was missed. Within four months the party had lost half of its support and Nigel Farage's Brexit Party had surged, overtaking the Tories in some polls and beating them in the European Parliament elections.

How will pro-Brexit voters view missing the October 31 deadline Johnson promised to deliver so often and so vehemently? In such volatile times nothing can be predicted with certainty, but there is very likely to be a significant chunk of angry pro-Brexit voters who feel Johnson has let them down.

If Labour performs as well as it did in 2017 and Johnson suffers the same loss of support May did for failing to deliver Brexit, Corbyn will have a shot at the job, either with a majority or in coalition with smaller parties. The implications for Ireland need consideration because they are considerable.

The most immediate effect of a Labour government, and one economically informed people close to him fear most, would be a collapse in the pound. It has been said a million times that the only thing London financiers fear more than the chaos of a no-deal Brexit is Corbyn as prime minister and his fellow traveller on the hard left, John McDonnell, as chancellor.

Labour are aware a sterling crisis could hobble them before they even get settled behind their ministerial desks, so they have a plan. In order to avoid a wall of money exiting the UK in the event of a Labour victory, McDonnell has gone out of his way to promise conventionality. When it comes to balancing Britain's books and setting interest rates he and his advisers have promised to be "boring". Orthodoxy in fiscal and monetary policy, they hope, will limit the extent to which the pound is sold off in foreign exchange markets.

These plans will only be partially successful, at best. Corbyn's Labour Party is further to the left than any of the big, traditional centre-left parties in Europe. It has a deep instinctive dislike and distrust of business. It sees state-led action, including the nationalisation of companies and the banning of private education, as the best way to address society's ills. The history of hard-left parties in power is to adopt even more extreme policies when things don't go their way. All of this strikes fear into the hearts of many business people and investors.

Here, Ireland stands to gain. Businesses and capital moving out of the UK will be looking for a stable, politically centrist home. Ireland has benefited to some degree from companies upping sticks because of Brexit. It would do so if Corbyn comes to power, and probably to a an even greater extent.

More negatively, a big fall in sterling would clobber producers who export to the British market. Experience has also shown British visitor numbers fall significantly when the pound weakens against the euro.

Readers may note the regional implication of this. Dublin, in particular, would likely benefit from British capitalists fleeing Corbyn. Rural areas, which depend on farming and tourism, would be hit.

Rural Ireland, however, may have reasons to be more favourable to Corbyn in the longer term. Labour's position on Brexit has been a muddled mess. Its current position is that it would look for yet another deal with the EU, binning the one agreed last month, and then putting it to a referendum.

If the EU was to agree to negotiate yet another Brexit deal, most factors point to a Labour government seeking to remain closer to the EU than envisaged in the current deal. That would likely involve a customs union which would, among other things, limit Britain's freedom to move to a cheap food policy. Such a policy, as most in the farming community know, would mean the permanent loss of most of the British market to low-cost producers outside Europe.

Corbyn has promised to put his deal to a referendum, with a choice between that deal and abandoning Brexit altogether. As no Brexit would be by far the best outcome for this island, Corbyn offers the best prospect on this.

The other big implication of a Corbyn government is for the politics of Northern Ireland and how it would impact the prospects of Irish reunification. Corbyn has criticised both Brexit deals on the grounds they would weaken the union between Northern Ireland and Britain. But he has no particular affinity with unionism. On the contrary, the party he has had most affinity with over decades has been Sinn Fein.

A Labour-led government would probably be more favourable to Sinn Fein's demand for a Border poll here - Corbyn has not ruled out a second Scottish referendum.

Sunday Independent