Brexit will be catastrophic. Yet I still support Jeremy Corbyn

As a conflicted remainer, it might be difficult to square my reasons for backing Corbyn. But it’s the Tory car crash that’s behind this mess, not him

ince his rise to power in the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal to younger voters has been first underestimated and then much examined. How is it that, despite his

rather lacklustre performance during the referendum campaign, younger voters – the majority of whom wanted to remain in the European Union – stubbornly persisted in voting for him in the general election? Labour’s much-denigrated failure to commit itself to freedom of movement is a distressing betrayal of his young supporters, goes this line of thinking. So why are they chanting his name at Glastonbury? To some, Corbyn’s popularity just does not compute, even now.

Perhaps an account of my own conflicted feelings on the Labour leader might shed some light on why, for so many, his Brexit stance is not the be all and end all. Don’t get me wrong, I – and I’m sure many other Labour voters – consider Brexit to be the biggest act of political self-sabotage in my lifetime, with stark consequences for my generation and those following it. Were it to be miraculously cancelled I would be over the moon. But there’s a sense that some would like everything to be about Brexit and only Brexit. When it comes to what people care about in 2017 – and vote on the basis of – that simply is not the case.

I joined the Labour party after the 2015 election. I had voted Labour then, despite reservations over claims it “was not the party for people on benefits” (during part of my childhood my family had been on benefits, and I was already sick to the back teeth of the relentless stigmatising in the media, and felt politically homeless as a result of it). My main reason for voting as I did – despite that cowardly policy of paying lip service to the widespread Conservative-backed demonisation of poor people – was that Jeremy Corbyn was my local MP. He was anti-austerity, as well as well-respected locally as a dedicated and compassionate constituency MP. I felt able to vote for him with a clear conscience.

After the Conservative victory, I joined Labour. I was devastated by the result, and felt that I needed to be involved in the direction that leftwing politics in this country was taking. I voted for Corbyn as Labour leader (and would do so again a year later), again motivated by his anti-austerity stance. During this period, Corbyn’s supporters were called naive and idealistic, but it was clear – to me at least – that there was something in the air. Momentum was building. He might be unelectable, I told myself, but at least he believes in something. And that something happened to be the sort of socialism that I thought had vanished from British politics for ever.

A year later, and the referendum result was for Brexit. The Labour party appeared to be imploding, and I was furious with all of them. I was angry at Corbyn for not campaigning as hard for remain as I felt he could have done, and angry at the Labour MPs for their disastrous attempted coup at a time when they should have been nailing the Tories to the wall for their disarray. Yet again, I felt politically homeless (because of tuition fees, I would never countenance voting Lib Dem). This, combined with a general feeling of unease about political affiliation not mixing well with journalism – I wanted to feel like I could slag Labour off if I felt they deserved it – led to my leaving the party last summer.

Now, I’m not laying claim to universality here; how any of us come to make decisions regarding politics is as complex as it is personal. But I do know that many others I spoke to felt the same way as I did – they love the EU and what it stands for, were heartbroken to be leaving, and also felt that Corbyn’s campaigning on the issue left a lot to be desired. So when another general election was announced just a year later, many of our conversations revolved around the question of who the hell we could vote for. And yet all of us, ultimately, ended up voting for a Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn.

There were a number of reasons: a genuinely progressive, exciting manifesto; the opportunity for real political change; the feeling that Corbyn was authentic and that he was dedicated to tackling inequality in all its forms, including the growing generational schisms. There was also the fact that the alternative – a hard Brexit presided over by Theresa May and an increasingly hysterical rightwing press – didn’t bear thinking about. What Labour was offering – to try to retain the benefits of the single market and the customs union – seemed like the realistic, least worst option.

According to the Guardian report, Brexit is a disaster, but it is happening. I may wish more than anything that it wasn’t, but I also wonder how one can advocate that politicians can simply ignore a democratic result when they so choose. Labour is clearly aware that some of its voters also voted for Brexit and is trying to walk a tricky tightrope. As someone who has felt both dispossessed and politically excluded, I balk at the idea of ignoring these voters, even if I myself believe that their vote to leave was misplaced. Brexit was never entirely about leaving the EU a year ago, and nor should it be now. That vote was as much a cry for help due to the housing crisis, austerity, and a crumbling NHS as anything else. How can we just ignore that? In any case, a truly anti-austerity politician is the best chance those same people have at a better life.

I imagine there are quite a few people out there who feel the same as I do. To an extent Corbyn’s hand has been forced by his own party at a time when no one actually even knows what Brexit will look like. But he is not the one in charge of this mess, and how the Tories’ car crash unfolds will have a significant bearing on the future of the country. Perhaps it is to them that we need to turn our eyes.