EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

it is (1) so they do not alienate parts of their electoral coalition (primarily ‘leavers’ in CON/LAB marginals in the midlands) and (2) a reflection of the broad spectrum of opinion within the party (which is a function of 1). you can argue its merits but that’s the rationale

personally I feel like we’re all in this mess because the tories wouldn’t face down the headbangers on their own side. I don’t want labour to make the same mistake

I think all of that is true, but I still think (as I've posted before) the main reason why Labour 'respects the result of the referendum' is because it is impossible for a prospective party of government not to do that. While, as we know, the referendum was flawed in a number of ways and its status is still unclear, any party that said it didn't respect the outcome would immediately disqualify itself from being trusted. If you're a minor party like the Lib Dems, you can come at it from a protest angle, but when you get into government, you inherit a lot of things that even if you don't agree with them you have to deal with in a way that does not outrage democracy.

Now, if you merely rescind or counteract policies that may have been enacted by a previous government, that is all fine and dandy, because you would have been elected on a manifesto promising to do that, and the previous government's policies would just have been in their manifesto, too. However, a referendum is a different process, so that a party can't just make it undone via a manifesto promise à la Lib Dems. I mean, I have no idea if Corbyn's approach will work electorally, but I certainly can't see any better way for Labour of dealing with this.