How unpopular can a populist get?

What’s the biggest lie that is told about Corbyn by his supporters?

Is it the fact that Jez supposedly supports the EU? Or that he has always been on the ‘right side’ of history?

Could it be the claim that his elevation to the leadership has nothing to do with the surge in anti-semitism within the Labour Party? Or the fact that the veteran leftist is apparently committed to stamping that racism out?

All of the above are certainly whoppers by anyone’s standards and would be credible contenders for the top spot, if it weren’t for a lie that is actually far more obvious and outrageous and staring us right in the face.

The biggest lie told by the Jezuit cheerleaders is one that can be immediately and categorically disproved, yet it still seems to have a currency.

It’s the lie that Corbyn is ‘popular’.

We hear it all the time, thrown casually into conversation.

‘Is it any wonder that Corbyn is so popular when the trains don’t run on time?’

‘Can we be surprised at the Labour Leader’s popularity when austerity has so demonstrably failed?’

You’d think from the commentary that Jez was riding a crest of wave – perhaps 15 or 20 points ahead of the Tory government in the polls, just as Blair was in the 1990s.

In fact, the latest polls make dismal reading for Labour. Theresa May is 14 points ahead of Corbyn when members of the public are asked who would make the best Prime Minister. She is also more trusted to manage the Brexit negotiations.

Support for Corbyn has even been steadily sliding among young people since the general election. Perhaps some of them expected to see the bearded guru on the barricades at the ‘People’s Vote’ rally the other day? No chance. Jezza was in Geneva and tweeting about General Pinochet – news that will make parody writers and comedians everywhere shudder, as they envisage the arrival of a P45.

Let’s give this some wider context.

By almost any criteria we could imagine, this is the most divided, incompetent and untalented government in modern history. No ifs or buts about that. The only remote parallel would be with John Major’s administration in the 1990s, which completely ran out of steam and was reduced to introducing Cones Hotlines on motorways.

Remember how the Corbynistas dismiss Tony Blair’s victory in 1997? Anyone could have won then, they said.

Is that a fact?

Well, if anyone could beat John Major in 1997, one of the turnips from Jez’s allotment should stand a fighting chance against Theresa May in 2018.

She is besieged, beleaguered and belaboured by her fellow Tories and has no idea whatsoever how she is going to rescue us all from the Brexit disaster.

But she is still more popular than Corbyn.

Some rational people on the left know that the game is up with Jez. Even erstwhile supporters are imagining a world without him and greatly regret the bizarre cult of personality that has built up around him.

So these people rush to the next line of defence.

Corbyn himself may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but his policies are popular. It was the manifesto last year that captured people’s imaginations.

This is a much more complex issue and the claim cannot be dismissed out of hand. It’s certainly true that many of the individual policies advanced by Labour command broad support. People are fed up with cutbacks to public services and are more amenable than for a number of years to the idea of higher taxation.

But I still believe that those who cling to the manifesto as evidence of a broader swing in public opinion or the expansion of the ‘Overton Window’ are in for a shock.

Again, some context.

Labour did surprisingly well last year and much better than I and other Blairites imagined they would. At the same time, the electorate was polarising after the collapse of UKIP and the Tories managed to achieve their highest share of the popular vote since 1983.

Labour was helped by two big factors. The first was the astonishing incompetence of the Tory campaign, triggered by the epic miscalculation of the dementia tax. The second was Corbyn’s remarkable fence sitting over Brexit. At a tactical level, I have to take my hat off to him, as I didn’t really think it would wash in the way that it did.

People who wanted to believe Corbyn would be a bulwark against a hard Brexit were able to kid themselves. Heartland voters were able to tell themselves that he would honour the UK’s commitment to leave.

This is Schrödinger’s Brexit. 

While box is closed, Labour is both for and against quitting the EU. But the cat is going to be let out of the bag very soon. And Jez is going to find he is even less popular than he is right now.