Over the past two and a half years, while the most vocal leave and remain campaigners have endlessly yelled at each other, Brexit has often presented itself as a case study in contradiction and complexity. Certainly, whenever I have spent time in leave-voting areas, I have always felt deeply ambivalent: sick and tired of the delusions that sit at Brexit’s heart, but also keenly aware that in some of the most neglected parts of England and Wales, a huge chunk of the people who voted for it did so because they had not been listened to for decades. As the whole saga groaned on, if I had a position, it was that Brexit probably had to happen – but that in its inevitably awful consequences might lie some eventual realignment of our politics, and the final death of an exceptionalist English fantasy with no place in the 21st century.

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Now, as much as similar thoughts still arrive on a daily basis, I wonder. Most of the Conservative politicians who championed leaving the EU and were then given the job of carrying it out have deserted their posts. The story of how key leave campaigners cheated their way to success may only just have started to unfold. And every month brings stories, too often overlooked, of how Brexit will blight the places that supported it: this week it was news about a doomed ball-bearing factory in Plymouth, in business for 50 years and now owned by the German company Schaeffler, but set to close with the loss of more than 350 jobs – partly, says the company, because of the “uncertainties surrounding Brexit”.

This much we know: whatever the stories of the millions of people who ended up backing it, Brexit originated in the failure of successive Conservative leaders to adequately deal with a tribe of uncontrollable Tory ideologues, and in the ingrained tendency of post-Thatcher Conservatives to play fast and loose with the livelihoods and security of the rest of us. In an awful instance of irony, the misery and resentment sown by the deindustralisation the Tories accelerated in the 1980s and the austerity they pushed on the country 30 years later were big reasons why so many people decided to vote leave. What also helped was a surreal campaign of lies and disinformation, both during and after the referendum campaign, waged by entitled people with their eyes only on the main chance.

These things are part of a vast charge sheet not only against the modern Conservative party, but an alliance of old and new money that has set the basic terms of British politics for the past 40 years. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson were educated at the same exclusive school as the prime minister whose idiotic decision to hold a referendum gave them their opportunity. Nigel Farage and Arron Banks are archetypal examples of the kind of spivs who were given licence to do as they pleased in the 80s. For all their absurd bleating about “elites”, we all know what these people represent: the two faces of the modern English ruling class, who have long combined to be nothing but trouble.

Which brings us to the question that, for all my lingering ambivalence, I cannot shake off: if the Labour party leadership is so radical, and allied with the best leftwing traditions, where is its anger about what these people have done?

While some of us have been spitting feathers about the deceptions perpetrated by rightwing leavers, Jeremy Corbyn has seemed barely interested. Is there some kind of awful equivalence between the rightwing Brexiteers, who see national crisis as the ideal seedbed for a free-market utopia, and leftwingers who think socialism is similarly best assisted by disaster? Whatever the explanation, and whatever the levels of support for leave among Labour voters, a supposed party of opposition – and a leftwing one at that – accepting a project birthed and then sustained in the worst kind of rightwing political circles is a very odd spectacle indeed. This, surely, will also be the verdict of history.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Labour would have to sideline the anti-EU mindset of its own leader.’ Jeremy Corbyn, left, and John McDonnell. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

As things stand, Labour’s position is apparently built on two fairly incredible beliefs: that it could somehow negotiate a much better Brexit, and that it wants a general election, which parliament is very unlikely to grant. Even if a contest did happen, unless the Tories were mad enough to plunge us into the chaos of no-deal, what exactly would it be about? With Brexit both falling apart and defining the entirety of day-to-day politics, Labour’s crafty fudging of the issue in 2017 would be impossible. Would its central offer be the difference between the current plan, to stay in a customs union for an unspecified period, or Labour’s guarantee to do so permanently? Might voters basically be asked to choose between the negotiating nous of Tories and the supposedly superior talents of Corbyn, Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry? Contrary to Labour’s hype, there is no chance of any deal delivering “the exact same benefits” as the status quo, nor of the party’s fabled “jobs-first” Brexit: with his usual bloodless candour, Donald Tusk this week reminded us that our passage out of the EU is “a lose-lose situation and that our negotiations are only about damage control”. As if anyone needed reminding, this would apply to a Labour government as well.

The country currently has three options, and parliament seems unlikely to be able to sensibly choose between them: the current withdrawal deal or something very like it, the unimaginable chaos of no-deal, or no Brexit. Self-evidently, leaving the EU without an agreement would be by far the most nightmarish, which is one of the reasons why Labour’s determination to vote down May’s deal is not without hazards. But in the midst of such imperfect options, and with heavy reservations, I think I know what we need to avoid national disaster: a Labour party ready to move beyond Corbyn’s hollow claim on Sunday that another referendum is merely “an option for the future”, and embrace what is now known as a people’s vote, with a recommendation that Britain should stay in the EU.

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Given that the Labour leadership has seemingly dug in, the only hope of any such move lies with MPs, and pressure that could be exerted by the party’s vast membership. Clearly, after two wasted years, even beginning to embed the idea of questioning and then abandoning Brexit in places where a majority voted for it would be an onerous task. Doing so would require enough working-class voices – where, for example, have the big unions been? – to convincingly speak to people and places that voted to leave the EU but have the most to lose from its consequences.

Labour would have to find a courage that it has so far failed to discover, and sideline the anti-EU mindset of its own leader. Vocal remainers both inside and outside the party would need to realise that any move in this direction would have to be part of a policy offer that even the boldness of, say, John McDonnell has so far only skirted. All told, it would involve something to which even these supposed radicals are averse: risk.

But what is the alternative: to carry on swallowing not just the endless deceptions of the leave elite but the also the disastrous effects their awful arrogance will have on people and places across the country?

British Conservatism is in decay and disarray; to mark its gravest postwar crisis by accepting its most heinous project would be a strange thing to do, and an evasion of our politics’ central fact: that Brexit is a class issue, and all else follows from that.

• John Harris is Guardian columnist