THE Labour leadership should have been feeling pretty pleased with itself at the moment. Jeremy Corbyn is in an unassailable position as its party conference gets underway and on the biggest issue of the day, the year, and the decade – Europe – it has been able to sit back and watch the Tories mess it up.

Theresa May’s Florence speech has only deepened the impression of disorganised chaos. It was sold by her spinners as a bold attempt to move the EU negotiations forward, but in fact it was a retreat to the position that Labour has long promoted: a two-year, no-change period in which Britain retains its current relationship with the EU. For 18 months, there has been a vacuum where the Government’s Brexit policy should be, and now one of the few certainties we have is a Labour policy of transition.

However, at a time when Labour should have been crowing about a political victory, instead there is confusion about where the party stands on the question that Mrs May’s speech did not answer: what happens after the transition? For months now, different messages have been coming from Labour, with some pushing for the UK to remain in the single market. The shadow chancellor John McDonnell has also appeared to suggest that Labour would support staying in the single market provided there were changes to the rules on freedom of movement.

However, in a further addition to the confusion, Jeremy Corbyn now seems to have indicated that Labour is unlikely to support staying in the single market. Responding to an open letter from senior Labour figures, Mr Corbyn said Labour needed to be cautious that, in supporting continued membership of the single market, it did not give up powers which it would need in government to deploy state support for British industries.

It should come as no surprise that the Labour leader has taken this position – indeed, the only surprise is that he supported a Remain vote last year. For traditional left-wingers like Mr Corbyn, the EU and the single market is an obstacle to the kind of policies he would like to pursue. He and Mr McDonnell, with some justification, also blame the single market for driving down pay and conditions for some workers because of free movement.

But Mr Corbyn, who said he supported Remain, should remember one of the main tenets of the pro-EU campaign which was that the single market brings real and important economic benefits to the British economy, including for the most vulnerable in society – and those benefits have not gone away. The best result for the UK would have been a vote to stay in the EU, but, failing that, the best option would be a commitment to keep the UK in the single market in some form.

That will not be politically easy for Labour, especially in the Brexit-voting constituencies that Mr Corbyn would like to win. But the alternative is worse for all of us: the disaster of a hard Brexit, championed by the Brexiteers and supported by Labour.