Beyond its Brexit mess, Britain faces a Corbyn-sized problem

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On one hand, the British people could really use an opposition-party government, right about now.

They’re watching in helpless alarm as Prime Minister Theresa May’s Tories tear one another to pieces over plans to wrench the United Kingdom out of its ties with the other 27 European Union countries. Britain’s membership in the EU will officially end on March 29. There’s no way Ms. May’s preferred "Chequers” plan, which maintains some trade relations and policy obligations, could be negotiated by then, even if most of her MPs endorse it (which they probably won’t), and the EU countries somehow were to agree to it (which they won’t now, or possibly ever).

At best, Britain will get an extension of a couple years to negotiate its exit on the EU’s terms, and thus will face a couple of years of limbo, during which investment will dry up, the country’s top employers will flee and two million expats will face agonizing uncertainty. At worst, the country will be plunged into a "no-deal Brexit,” suddenly cut off and lacking any recognizable trade or human-mobility relationships with any country, beginning two weeks after the Ides of March.

Even without Brexit, Britain needs a more expansive-minded party in power. The Conservatives made the grave error of responding to the worldwide economic crisis not by pouring capital into the economy to shore up demand (as almost every other country did) but by choking off spending and investment for eight years – and the result has been a steep rise in child poverty, falling health indicators and economic-growth rates that have nearly frozen while most other countries' have risen.

The answer should be to replace the post-collapse Tories with a Labour Party government – after all, Labour managed to improve all of those indicators during its 13 years in office, and surely couldn’t be any worse than Ms. May’s Tories, you’d think.

On the other hand, as we saw at its party conference in Liverpool this week, it probably wouldn’t be any better.

Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s very left-wing economic policies were actually the least worrisome thing on display during his upbeat speech. Many of them (labour rights, stronger welfare) would be useful correctives, and some, such as more state ownership, would be fiscally regressive but are hardly new in Britain.

The larger problem is that Labour seems determined to become a nationalist, populist fringe party bent on isolating its country from the world.

The biggest controversy the party faces involves its refusal to repudiate far-left members who have expressed conspiratorial ideas about Jews – a shocking development in a party previously led by the Jewish son of a Holocaust-fleeing refugee. This summer, Mr. Corbyn was identified as one of those members, after video emerged of a 2013 speech in which he questioned whether Jewish Britons were really British.

Mr. Corbyn lengthily proclaimed that he hoped he and Jewish leaders could "work together to draw a line under it.” Yet that occurred only moments after he launched a lengthy, very Trumpian denunciation of "the billionaires who own the bulk of the British press,” in which he told his followers to ignore the entire media, including the BBC and the Labour-supporting Mirror and Guardian, who “spread lies and half-truths,” and instead trust only "the mass media of the 21st century: social media,” which will hardly help rescue his party from xenophobic conspiracy theories.

But that fit neatly into his larger program.

Mr. Corbyn has always been as opposed to European Union membership as Ms. May is – but he sees it as a capitalist plot. He has moderated that stance, since most of his party members strongly support Europe. Now he says he’ll still support Ms. May’s Brexit, but only if it includes trade relations. And he’ll permit another referendum, possibly (but not certainly) one with an option to remain in Europe. But he won’t do what should be done: Just remain in Europe (the referendum was strictly advisory and does not need to be held again).

Why? Because in policy and messaging, Mr. Corbyn is determined to shift Labour from a party of the cities (where most people live) to a party of smaller towns and regions (which have more ridings). People in those ridings are more likely to fear immigrants and Europe. Previous British leaders have tried to win this by sounding tough on immigrants. Mr. Corbyn instead embraces very nationalist policies, both economic and political – even if that means echoing the Tories on isolationism and some forms of intolerance.

There is a better-than-even chance that Mr. Corbyn will become Prime Minister, sooner or later. It will be a change, but not one that anyone should welcome.