Second Brexit referendum would be betraying British people: May
THERESA May has told MPs that a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union would be a “betrayal”.
The Prime Minister poured scorn on “conflicting statements” from Labour on the need for a second vote, saying the approach was “the best way to get the worst deal”.
Senior Labour figures appeared to be at odds on Sunday after deputy leader Tom Watson said “you shouldn’t rule anything out” while shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said her party “doesn’t support a second referendum”.
DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, speaking after Mrs May updated the House on the latest European Council summit, said: “The Prime Minister will have heard some confusion and conflicting statements from opposition members about the need for a second referendum and their desire to have one.
“Some say one thing, others say another thing. Would the Prime Minister agree that a second referendum is the surest way of making the European Commission and European Union make the hardest and most difficult deal possible for the UK?
“What people want is to get on and deliver the first referendum.”
Mrs May said: “The best way to get the worst deal would be to suggest that we agree to a second referendum, but it’s more than that, I think. It would actually be betraying the British people. This Parliament gave them the vote and it is up to us to deliver on the result of that vote.”
Meanwhile, a senior adviser to the EU’s chief withdrawal negotiator Michel Barnier has stressed that if the UK did not come up with a specific solution to avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland, London had agreed full alignment in areas that impacted North/South relations on the island of Ireland.
Speaking in London, Stefaan De Rynck added that the concept of “gradual divergence”, where the UK moves away from EU law step by step over time, was “stating the obvious”.