‘Don’t revisit Brexit’

British PM to warn against a ‘damaging’ second referendum

PRIME Minister Theresa May was to warn MPs today against supporting a second referendum “liable to damage” to politics.

“Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum,” she was expected to tell the House of Commons, according to Downing Street.

“Anther vote … would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics” and “would likely leave us no further forward”, while it would “further divide our country at the very moment we should be working to unite it”, she was to say.

Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016 and is due to leave on March 29. But Mrs May is fighting to get Parliament to accept a divorce deal reached with the EU last month.

She has faced calls for a second referendum to resolve the impasse but has argued that this would betray the 2016 result and undermine public confidence in politics.

Campaigners for a new referendum said Mrs May’s remarks showed that the idea was being taken seriously.

“A new public vote would be different from the referendum in 2016 because we now know more about what Brexit means,” said Margaret Beckett, a Labour MP and “People’s Vote” supporter. “Any effort to force Brexit over the line without checking that it has the continued consent of the British people will only reinforce divisions.”

Dozens of MPs back a second referendum, and there have been reports that the Government is considering it.

But former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit campaigner, said anyone considering a second vote was “out of their minds”.

Mrs May, who survived a no-confidence vote among her MPs last week, has delayed until next month a crucial vote by the Commons on the draft Brexit deal.

If it fails Britain would crash out of the EU.