Corbyn refuses to say he would lead Britain out of EU
LONDON/MANCHESTER: The leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, refused to confirm on Tuesday that he would take Britain out of the European Union if his party won a June 8 election, the BBC reported.
“He said this morning ‘Brexit is settled’ - but I asked him five times if categorically, we would leave the EU if he were PM (prime minister) he wouldn’t say,” the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg said on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, Corbyn vowed to carry on leading Labour if he loses a national election on June 8, defying polls showing he is on course for defeat and concerns from within his party that his leadership threatens its future.
Corbyn, who officially launched his party’s election campaign on Tuesday, told BuzzFeed News he would carry on whatever the outcome. “I was elected leader of this party and I’ll stay leader of this party,” he said.
Corbyn has pledged higher taxes on the wealthy and a crackdown on powerful corporations since he took control of the centre-left Labour Party in 2015 thanks to a surprise surge in support amongst grassroots member for his socialist agenda.
But he has struggled to unite Labour’s elected ranks behind his political vision or convince the wider public of his leadership credentials, diminishing the party’s ability to exert pressure on issues like Britain’s exit from the European Union. Some recent opinion polls have put Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives ahead of Labour by more than 20 percentage points and on course for a landslide victory.
May says an election win will strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations, but opponents of her negotiating strategy fear it will drown out Labour’s voice in the debate over what kind of deal UK should seek from Brussels.