Front Bench: Who is having a worse week, Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn? 

Theresa May with Caribbean leaders
I'm very sorry Credit: Getty Images Europe/WPA Pool

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Front Bench

It’s well known that this Government doesn’t have much time or strength for legislating – Brexit and the loss of the Tory majority put paid to most plans. Without legislation politics is left with events, and yesterday provided the full gamut of how events can buffet or bolster a party. The Government continued to suffer for the Windrush fiasco, but celebrated a victory in the Commons on Syria. Jeremy Corbyn suffered that reverse on Syria and was lambasted by his own backbenchers for his failure to tackle the Labour party’s antisemitism problem.

Which way do we vote again?

As Front Bench predicted yesterday, the Syria debate ended up being a bit of a non-event, aside from the mild amusement at Corbyn and his whips getting confused over which way they were meant to be voting – the nature of the emergency debate meant the question had to be neutral, and Labour’s leadership proposed one that they wished to vote against. Michael Deacon skewers the palaver neatly.

The Government won the debate with a clear majority, including many Labour rebels. What exactly this means for the balance of power between the executive and the legislature probably won’t become clear until the next attempted foreign intervention, but it appears the status quo is intact.

The hardest word

Outside the chamber, things haven’t been going that well for the Government either. After the Home Secretary apologised for the treatment of Windrush generation migrants, Theresa May then had to apologise directly to the leaders of several Caribbean nations.

However, the story refuses to die and it grew new legs late yesterday when it emerged that the Home Office decided to destroy the landing cards of thousands of Commonwealth arrivals during an office move in 2010. This was despite internal warning not to, as the cards were often vital evidence for case workers.

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit chief, took the opportunity to bring it back to Brexit. He told The Telegraph that the Windrush fiasco “could be worrying for millions of EU citizens in the UK who may fear that they could face similar treatment after Brexit”.

A mire of his own

It is perhaps surprising that Labour hasn’t made better use of the whole scandal to attack the Conservatives. The party has been critical, of course, but, aside from David Lammy, it hasn’t been particularly visible.

Corbyn will have a chance to press May on Windrush at PMQs this afternoon. But, perhaps part of the plan is to revert to Labour's successful winter strategy: leave the Tory’s to be their own worst enemies and keep schtum. That wouldn’t be a bad idea if it weren’t for the fact that what killed that strategy last time hasn’t gone away. Immediately after the Syria vote, Parliament rolled onto a general debate about antisemitism.

The afternoon was rather uncomfortable for Corbyn, who was passionately lambasted by multiple backbenchers, some of whom were clearly very upset, over the antisemitic abuse and death threats they and their families had received from hard-Left members of the public. It made grim viewing. (Watch some of the speeches here and here). At one point, Corbyn’s deputy, Tom Watson, appeared to physically try and distance himself from the party leader by moving to sit on the backbenches with Jewish MPs.

The damage? 

It’s hard to tell how much of an effect Labour’s antisemitism problem is having on its support levels. The party appears to have fallen behind the Tory’s slightly in recent weeks, but that may well be over Corbyn’s response to the Skripal poisonings. And the party is still at or around the 40 point mark, which is remarkable in and of itself.

Still, it’s hard to avoid the impression that all the time Labour is stuck arguing over its internal problems, it isn’t out making the case for itself.

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