Corbyn has committed to a people’s vote, so why do remainers still attack him?

Essential to the success of any struggle is to recognise when you have won. It is less than a year and a half since the People’s Vote campaign was founded. It has organised mass demonstrations, rallies, petitions; its grassroots have leafleted, chanted, sung and often rather pointedly made themselves heard on social media. Their demand was straightforward: any Brexit deal negotiated with the EU should be subject to a confirmatory referendum, with remain as the other option. And that campaign has achieved a dramatic success, compelling Labour to implement its policy if it wins an election. Yet where are the triumphant declarations or the rightly triumphalist victory parties?

Labour’s leadership is savaged for inconsistency and zigzagging incomprehensibly, as though it is unique or politically bankrupt in its attempt to manage drastically shifting sands and an ever more polarising culture war. For those of us who campaigned for remain in the referendum, there was a particular problem: there was no mass movement on our side. The official remain campaign was a dire, corporate, status quo outfit that did not understand, and was institutionally incapable of relating to, a deep well of disillusionment in British society.

Remain emerged as a mass movement only after the referendum: or, more accurately, after the 2017 election. In the immediate aftermath of June 2016, many remainers were traumatised but resigned to making the result work. The notion of “no deal” was nowhere within the realms of political possibility, and Nigel Farage had extolled the virtues of Norway, which is a member of the single market. Labour’s position – that although the referendum had been lost, the result was close, and a deal should be based on a close relationship with the EU – made sense in a society willing to compromise.

Stalwarts of Remainia passionately backed activating article 50, from Anna Soubry to Chuka Umunna, who argued that “to stand against the decision of the country would be to deepen Labour and the country’s divisions”. Open Britain – the successor of the official remain campaign – argued for membership of the single market and the customs union. Labour itself fought its election campaign promising to honour the vote and without committing to the single market and customs union, much to the later chagrin of remainers.

What changed? The Tory administration in general, and the Tory Brexiteers in particular, treated the referendum result as though they were an all-conquering army, that the winner takes all. Remainers were not only excluded from the process but were systematically humiliated and insulted by the government. Not only was a hard Brexit offered by Theresa May, but the Brexiteers toxified the possibility of any negotiated deal in favour of the delusion of no deal. When May lost her majority, she should have accepted that the British people had delivered a mandate for a compromise, soft Brexit, and worked on a cross-party basis to secure it; she did not.

While some leading remain figures genuinely saw Brexit as a terrible national tragedy, others saw it as a means to attack the Labour leadership and drive a wedge between it and its members and voters, leading to ever worsening bad blood. The consequences have been a progressively more bitter culture war. But what is striking is how swiftly the polarisation has taken place. It was after the UK didn’t leave the EU on 31 March that the dam truly burst, aided by a European election campaign that rewarded the radical sides of the divide.

Labour has made errors. Its failure to make a principled case for freedom of movement has been depressing and cowardly. And while certain politically hostile elements have used Brexit as a stick to beat the leadership, there has been a failure to empathise with those seeing it as a disaster capitalist migrant-bashing project.

The party should have moved more quickly and decisively when its compromise position had been destroyed in polling stations across the country in the European elections. A shambolic, misfired attempt to remove Labour’s deputy leader – however authentic the grassroots anger with him is – has only fuelled Corbyn’s enemies.

Related: The language of Brexit ‘betrayal’ is poisoning politics | Jonathan Lis

But the People’s Vote campaign has triumphed, and the only viable route to ending Brexit lies in the Tories being displaced by Labour as the party of government. Those who apparently will never be satisfied until Corbyn tattoos the EU flag on his face and camps outside parliament bellowing “Stop Brexit” should consider that the culture war is ripping the social fabric of British society apart.

Without an attempt to bridge a toxic divide, an ugly future awaits us all. If – in another referendum – leavers are left feeling like a defeated people presided over by a triumphalist conquering army, the UK will remain a tinderbox. Is demanding Corbyn campaigns passionately for remain, when almost the entire Labour party will do anyway, worth it? The entire political strategy of the UK’s joint prime ministers – Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings – rests on a divided remain vote. Without tackling the injustices that led to this turmoil – as Labour is committed to doing – how will social peace ever be achieved? The truth is Remainia staged an insurrection, and it won. Sometimes you have to accept defeat: what is baffling is, in this case, many seem incapable of accepting victory.

• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist