THE campaign to stop Britain leaving the EU is reaching a crescendo, with hundreds of thousands marching for a second referendum at the weekend, millions signing a petition calling for Article 50 to be revoked and now European Council chief Donald Tusk, a former Polish PM appointed to the role over the loud protests of his own country, calling on the European Parliament not to “betray” British Remain supporters who “may feel that they are not sufficiently represented by their UK Parliament” (actually they are rather overrepresented there).

This pressure appears to be linked to Labour saying it will back an “indicative vote” for a public vote on any deal agreed by the May government (while maintaining that it wants an election and a mandate to negotiate its own deal, which it would not necessarily support a referendum on).

At the same time shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner caused a row by merely stating the obvious flaws in supporting a referendum where the options were Theresa May’s deal or Remain, since that would mean “we would allow a bad deal as long as the public had the opportunity to reject Brexit altogether,” a contradictory position for a party that says it respects the referendum result.

The big anti-Brexit mobilisations show that the Remain cause commands significant public support.

But that was obvious from the result of the 2016 referendum itself, where it mustered around 16 million votes to Leave’s 17.4 million.

The contrast between the size of last Saturday’s march and Nigel Farage’s brief Sunderland outing does not show the difference in support between Remain and Leave, merely that the millions who voted to “take back control” have no time for the washed-up ex-Ukip boss or his poisonous politics and deserve to be taken more seriously rather than dismissed as dimwits who were taken in by “cheating and lies.”

In the 2017 election, over 85 per cent of voters backed candidates who pledged to respect the referendum result.

Labour, by accepting that the people had spoken but pushing an agenda of wealth redistribution and social regeneration, successfully moved beyond the divisive polarisation of the 2016 campaigns. 

Doing so is essential for Jeremy Corbyn. Ed Miliband’s unambitious outfit might have looked to govern on a parliamentary majority obtained with 35 per cent of the vote, but a transformative socialist administration will need to mobilise mass support against the many institutional and corporate obstacles it will face. It has to bring Leavers and Remainers together.

Yet after the great steps forward of 2017 we are now back in a political moment where divisions over Brexit appear all-powerful.

Remain voters who were happy to back a Leave-supporting party in 2017 — they overwhelmingly rejected Remain-supporting alternatives the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, and even in majority Remain-voting Scotland the votes of Leave-supporting Labour and Conservatives rose against the Remain-backing SNP — now appear to have stopped accepting the people’s verdict.

If they succeed in overturning it, Parliament’s betrayal of millions of Leave voters will create deep, lasting and dangerous resentment and further delegitimise Britain’s broken politics.

Part of the reason lies in May’s obstinacy, her refusal to shift her “red lines” even when Parliament rejects them, turning the Brexit process into an undignified mess in which few can have confidence.

Part lies in the relentless scaremongering of the Remain operation, successfully convincing some people that the country stands at the edge of disaster.

But part lies in our movement’s failure to shift politics away from a Brexit-obsessed Westminster and to the street, the community and the workplace.

These are the arenas where our battles against cuts and privatisation, our struggles for higher pay and decent housing and respect at work, can bring working people together irrespective of how they voted on the EU to start building a better Britain.