The Vote Leave EU Referendum vote was, above all, an anti-establishment vote - a vote quickly and unashamedly appropriated for the Tory party by May's brazen about turn on the EU. Corbyn's much more nuanced and equivocal approach did not go down well with the baying mob.

But the more May has governed, the more it has become clear to all and sundry that she IS the establishment.  So how are those disillusioned with the status quo going to vote now? If May has achieved anything, it is the annihilation of UKIP, ably assisted by UKIP themselves.

So the Labour party, under Corbyn is once again the sole alternative anti-establishment party. I had thought the LIB Dems might mop up much of the Remain vote, but their craven collaboration with the Tories is too recent a memory for those unhappy with the status quo.

Corbyn has become, or has been made to become, the living embodiment of  the anti-establishment sentiment which animated the Brexit and Trump campaigns. No wonder the Guardian hates him. He has exposed them as the craw-thumping Tory lite party they truly are.

He will most probably not win, but he has done all an opposition leader could have done in the most difficult of circumstances.  Hopefully he will now succeed in transforming the Labour Party into something truly representing an alternative to TINA May.

Things could get really interesting if May fails to secure an overall majority - still a long shot in my view.  A coalition of Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, (and perhaps even Sinn Fein if they took their seats) could negotiate Brexit in good faith and put the outcome of the negotiations to a second referendum - all the while promising the SNP and Sinn Fein referenda in Scotland and Northern Ireland if the Leave vote carried the day.

Conservatives and Unionists would then be faced with a clear choice - stay in the EU on renegotiated terms or lose the UK. Corbyn would also be seeking a very different EU than the Cameron negotiation - one replacing neo-liberal market dogma with a more interventionist and egalitarian EU.

A win win for both the UK and the EU.  Unfortunately most probably still a pipe dream.

Index of Frank's Diaries