Corybyn: Election ‘a practical way to end deadlock’

THE UK’s Brexit date of March 29 could be put back if Labour forces a general election, Jeremy Corbyn has said. In a high-profile speech, the Labour leader confirmed that his party will vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal next Tuesday and call a vote of no confidence in the UK government if she loses, in the hope of forcing a general election.

He dismissed the government’s offer to consider new safeguards for workers as part of the Brexit package, backing a trade union assessment that ‘it simply doesn’t guarantee the protections that we are seeking.’

Mr Corbyn confirmed that Labour would go into any early election on a platform of opening new negotiations with Brussels on a Brexit deal involving a customs union, single market relationship and a guarantee to keep pace with EU rights and standards. He said ‘time’ would be needed for those talks.

Speaking to party supporters in West Yorkshire, England, Mr Corbyn said a general election was the most ‘practical’ and ‘democratic’ way to ‘break the deadlock’ in parliament. He urged MPs from across the Commons to join Labour in voting for an early poll, and added: ‘People across the country... know the system isn’t working for them. Some see the EU as a defence against insecurity and hostility. Others see [it] as part of an establishment that plunged them into insecurity and hostility in the first place. The real solution is to transform Britain to work in the interests of the vast majority, by challenging the entrenched power of a privileged elite.’