Whatever the rights and wrongs of Brexit, it is clearly being pursued now with the utmost inefficiency. The government appears clueless and divided. Could this be deliberate? Many in the government, including Theresa May, didn’t want Brexit in the first place. The mess they’re making of it appears to show them to have been right then. In the meantime, obviously affected by this, public opinion is gradually turning towards favouring a second referendum, on the terms of the disengagement (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/26/britons-favour-second-referendum-brexit-icm-poll). Is this what May was secretly banking on? It’s a clever ruse, if so.
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Meta
Porter’s Pensées 
The constructive incompetence theory is a nice one, but from past experience straightforward incompetence is more likely.
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What in that case do you make of Corbyn’s stance on Brexit?
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At the time of the referendum he argued a balanced case in favour of Remain, despite having been suspicious of the EU (and its predecessors) from the beginning. Unfortunately the press didn’t pick up on this. (See https://bernardjporter.com/2016/06/02/corbyns-fault/.) There are two possible reasons for the ambivalent position he is taking now. The first is merely tactical: so as not to alienate the Brexit section of his working-class base. The second is because of his awareness of the complexity of the question, and uncertainty about the alternatives to EU membership that lie before us now. I imagine he has always regarded the EU as a ‘capitalists’ club’, as I used to until recently. (I can’t remember, but I probably voted ‘No’ in 1975 for this reason.) Now however it has become clear to me (a) that the EU also has the potential, at least, of becoming a more social-democratic barricade against red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism – its ‘social chapter’, for example; and (b) that in our (Britain’s) search for new markets and relationships to replace our European ones, we run the risk of being ensnared into an even more ‘capitalist club’ – the American one. It could be that Jezza’s mind has been moving in that direction too. I don’t know, of course, but I’ve found in so many ways his thoughts and policies according with mine, as a fellow 1960s-throwback. That would be a good reason for his changing – or at least adapting – his mind, and for what seems to be his irresolute stand on the principle of EU membership. A ‘soft’ Brexit, which seems to be his present preference, would accord with both his long-established view and with the changes in circumstance which have intervened. And it might satisfy his Northern Brexit base.
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