Britain’s Labor Party votes to get out of EU

LONDON: Britain’s opposition Labor Party descended into chaos on Monday (Tuesday in Manila)as it narrowly rejected a grassroots attempt to force leader Jeremy Corbyn to campaign to remain in the European Union (EU) and reverse the outcome of the 2016 Brexit vote.

The 119-year-old party’s annual Congress turned into a showdown between its irreconcilably splintered pro- and anti-Brexit wings in the runup to Britain’s October 31 divorce from its European neighbors after 46 years.

Corbyn’s efforts to unite the two sides by staying out of the debate and putting the ultimate decision in the hands of voters have led to a dramatic drop in Labor’s support.

But a motion to force the party to “campaign energetically for a public vote and to stay in the EU in [ a second] referendum” was lost in a show-of-hands vote that appeared too close to call.

The result means that the party will leave the conference in the same position that it came in — in favor of a second referendum, but against openly campaigning for or against Brexit.

It also marks a triumph for the

leader of Britain’s opposition since 2015 — and a painful blow for a clutch of top officials who broke ranks and tried to turn Labour into an unambiguously pro-European party.

“I do not believe this decision re

majority of Labour members who desperately want to stop Brexit,” London’s Labor mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted after the vote.

“Labor is a remain party.” Corbyn carried the day after an emotional two- hour debate ended

no-one initially knew who came out on top.

“In my view, it was carried,” congress chair Wendy Nicholls announced after surveying the hands of hundreds of delegates packed into a hall in the English south coast resort of Brighton.