Labour needs a reboot – and it could start with bringing back Ed Miliband | Owen Jones

Brexit has robbed the Corbyn project of its identity. Backing a referendum and shaking up the shadow cabinet would help

Labour needs a drastic reboot. The Tories may be in existential crisis, desperately flapping around in a rising tide of rightwing populism, but Labour’s hopes of securing the sizeable majority it needs to enact a transformative agenda are uncertain. The Brexit mire has robbed the Corbyn project of its core identity, a sense of insurgency; stripped away its optimistic, idealistic gloss; and suppressed the enthusiasm of Labour’s members and the voters most inspired by its 2017 manifesto. Its desperate, indeed honourable, desire for a Brexit compromise in a painfully fractured nation, to be the party that skilfully transcended the divisions bequeathed by a referendum result three years ago, was remorselessly kicked to death in polling stations last week. If the party’s position was intended to be a Rorschach inkblot in which remainers or leavers could see what they wanted to see, in the end all either saw was a splattered mess.

Related: Corbyn pledges Labour will back referendum on any Brexit deal

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2WflI92

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