It's important to note that, as leftists have been saying for years now - centrism has definitely collapsed. These election results again make this clear - along with Labour, the Liberal Democrats have done very badly. Sadly, the centre has been replaced by a far-right that offers easy, and false/racist, answers to our problems. The left has been unable to counter that.
Labour's poor result is largely down to Labour leavers punishing them (in the midlands/north) - for backing a second referendum. It's going to be extremely frustrating, and just downright ridiculous, if centrists start blaming that on Corbyn. Will they ever wake up?
It is these centrists who helped alienate those voters, via decades of neoliberalism, and by refusing to acknowledge this collapse of centrism. By immediately rejecting the EU vote and insisting it was illegitimate, and by insinuating that all leavers, including the millions of Labour leavers, were all racists, rather than recognizing that firstly, that is not true (for many Labour leavers at least), and that secondly, those who are racist/xenophobic, are largely that way, because of centrist, neoliberal policy, which screwed over their lives and made them easy targets of the far-right, these centrists have been an incredibly negative influence over the party.
I was on the fence about backing the second referendum, precisely because of the risk of losing these voters, but I think really, Brexit just made things impossible for Labour. Corbyn clearly didn't want to support it, but he's a democrat, and that's what the party wanted. And obviously, the pressure from outside the party - from liberal media/pundits, Lib Dems, etc - was insane. And if they hadn't backed it, that also would have have had negative consequences, as some remainers would have fled. I always felt that Labour's position of not backing either side, but of trying to bring the country together, seemed the best of a bad bunch of options. In backing a second referendum, they pretty much abandoned that position, even with Jeremy's insistence on, personally, staying neutral.
The fear of Brexit, and the desire to prevent it, was and is obviously entirely reasonable, but it looks as though there should have been much more of a recognition of the EU result, from Remainers.
Brexit - the greatest gift to the ruling classes ever!
Saying all this, if we actually had a media that hadn't spent years attacking the anti-racist, man of peace, Jeremy Corbyn, and had instead attacked Boris Johnson - the actual racist; if it had made clear that the Tories are already privatizing the NHS, and have no interest in addressing climate change; and made clear that Labour would've ended that privatization, and that their plans for the environment were backed by climate scientists, and necessary to create a sustainable future; if it had made clear the dire consequences of a Tory Brexit - then, despite all the divisions caused by Brexit, the result would have been very different, I'd hope.
The fight must continue, or else the future is incredibly bleak for all of us. Neoliberalism has destroyed us, in so many ways. Centrists need to come left and join the socialist movement, if there is to be any hope.
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