This is to clarify my views and is only for circulation in the leader of the opposition’s office. Please treat it as securely as a diplomatic cable. No leaks!

For Brexit

The problem with the EU is that it isn’t a Latin American liberation movement. It’s so boring and capitalist! All that trade. All those suits and tedious negotiations. Endless council meetings in that Brussels building, as revolutionary as Buckingham Palace.

How can I be England’s Che, or even Aneurin Bevan, hemmed in like that? The social democrats are the worst, though I quite like that new Spanish socialist, Sánchez, who campaigned across Spain in a battered old car against Franco’s heirs. I could do the same in Croydon!

The EU is never going to become a hammer and sickle. But there is one truly revolutionary thing happening out there: Brexit itself. Amazingly, the Tories have become “freedom fighters” in their assault on Europe, egged on by Farage and their Faragised petty-bourgeois grass roots who wouldn’t let Theresa May – and won’t let Boris Johnson – steer the country away from the most extreme Brexit possible after the 2016 referendum.

Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Show all 29 1 /29 Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Remain protesters with pro-EU banners sit next to a Leave campaigner in Trafalgar square during the People’s Vote march in London. The pro-Brexit protester holds aloft the back cover of a newspaper to show his opposition to the Peoples Vote campaign Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Anti-Brexit protester dressed as widow holds a sign in mourning of the future Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester holds a pro-Brexit sign on the march Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Child with anti-Brexit banner at the People’s Vote march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Protesters in central London attend the Brexit Betrayal rally in support of the Leave vote Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Writing on a wall in support of Remain at the People’s Vote march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens ‘The power of the ballot box is mightier than the sword, how wrong was I ?’ A banner near Trafalgar Square after the Brexit Betrayal rally Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Kid holds anti-Brexit banner at the People’s Vote march Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A pro-Brexit demonstrator marches with a sign Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester holds a sign in support of Remain at the People’s Vote march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester holds a Ukip sign at the Brexit Betrayal march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester with a sticker sign ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ on her face joins the crowds in Trafalgar Square at the People’s Vote march Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A pro-Brexit protester carries a Union Jack at the Brexit Betrayal march Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester in Trafalgar Square holds a sign that reads ‘Brexit is an Epic Fail’ Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A pro-Brexit supporter attends the People’s Vote march and stages a one-man counter-protest, holding what appears to be a newspaper with a re-edited back page in support of the Leave Vote Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A sign opposing Brexit at the People’s Vote march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A sign in support of the Leave vote at a pro-Brexit rally in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A young protester with an anti-Brexit sign in Trafalgar Square Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A pro-Brexit demonstrator holds a sign in the Brexit Betrayal rally Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A family attends the People’s Vote march in support of remaining within the EU Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Pro-Brexit protesters hold banners in central London at the Brexit Betrayal rally Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Young protesters gather in Trafalgar Square at the People’s Vote March Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A pro-Brexit protester and his sign at the Brexit Betrayal rally in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Protesters sit by Trafalgar Square holding a sign in Spanish in support of the Remain vote, at the People’s Vote march, London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens ‘Out means Out’. A protester holds a pro-Brexit sign at the Brexit Betrayal rally Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A woman stands by anti-Brexit signs at Whitehall after the People’s Vote march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens Dog and owner at the Brexit Betrayal rally in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester dressed as a dinosaur holds the EU flag as anti-Brexit protesters walk past at the People’s Vote march in London Angela Christofilou Both sides of Brexit: Remain and Leave through a lens A protester dressed as a dinosaur holds a sign rallying against ‘Davocracy’ – in reference to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos Angela Christofilou

Our strategy so far has been to wait for the implosion of their minority government propped up by the DUP ultras. Then we win the inevitable snap election. Preferably this is after Brexit has gone through, so the crisis is so bad that we are bound to win, provided we can get to that point without dipping our hands in the blood.

It hasn’t worked yet. But Johnson is the last throw of the Brexit dice. We don’t want Brexit to collapse before it brings him down.

There is, of course, the problem of what to do on Europe once the Bastille has fallen. Keir can sort all that out, either in or out of the EU, while I get on with the exciting stuff on nationalisation and Palestine. I like the sound of “Common Market 2.0”. It sort of rhymes with “Great Britain 2.0” which comes when the new dawn breaks ... sorry, forget that, it was Blair’s line in 1997 when neoliberalism is all that dawned.

Against Brexit

Well, it hasn’t worked so far! The only thing that keeps falling off the fence is me. And though I keep getting back on, as someone – Churchill? – said of someone else, “he has sat on the fence so long, the iron has entered his soul”.

We are losing everyone. It was always bizarre for Caroline Flint and her crew to think that ardent Brexiteers would vote for us just because we said we “respected the referendum result” and waffled about a “Better Brexit”. If people really want Brexit, they will vote for the real thing, Tory or Farage, while Remainers are going Green and Lib Dem.

Anyway, it is a mistake to think that most of the Brexit vote was about Brexit. It was far more about austerity and “shit life syndrome”, and the only solution to that is a Labour government which isn’t bankrupt because of Brexit.

There’s also the problem of the Labour Party itself. It really hates Brexit! And it really likes Europe and the EU! It likes all that internationalism and trade and prosperity and peace. I can’t even stop half of Momentum saying they don’t want to go back to the 30s and we need a people’s vote! They keep telling me I said I would listen to the members, and isn’t it about time I actually did so rather than just fixing the NEC with Len?

The young are especially pro-European. As a student put it to me: “Jeremy, we don’t want to be shut up on a small island with Farage, Johnson and Rees-Mogg – or even you, to be frank.”

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I also need to tell make a confession, Seumas. I know I used to trot out all that anti-Brussels stuff – “club of capitalists” etc. But I’ve come to think that the EU isn’t just the best of a bad job; it has positive virtue.

It’s what Sánchez told me. Europe has done a better job of standing up to Thatcherism at home and Trump abroad than anything outside Highgate cemetery. It is the ally, not the enemy, of the left. I know you think Merkel and Macron are Marks and Spencer, but they’re better than anyone you meet at a summit these days. And if it’s a bit anti-Russian, well, Putin has gone the way of Beria, not Trotsky.

I’m struck by that remark of Nigel Lawson, the godfather of Thatcherism, that “Brexit gives us the chance to complete the Thatcher revolution”. That’s what Brexit is fundamentally about. We need to kill it before it kills us. That’s why I’m going to make a statement saying that, after all, we stand for referendum and Remain. Well, almost.