Khan’s U-turn as he backs second vote on Brexit
SADIQ Khan faced a backlash last night after he demanded Brexit be postponed to allow time for another EU referendum.
The Labour Mayor of London joined calls for a fresh poll despite warning such a move would lead to ‘even more cynicism’ among voters in the weeks after the 2016 vote to leave the EU. But yesterday he said ministers could ‘easily’ ask Brussels to ‘suspend’ the UK’s exit next March and hold a referendum with the various choices of accepting the Brexit deal or remaining part of the bloc.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove said it was ‘troubling’ that Mr Khan was attempting ‘to frustrate the vote that we had twoand-a-half years ago’.
He told the Andrew Marr Show: ‘People voted clearly, 17.4million people voted to leave the European Union and Sadiq is essentially saying, “stop, let’s delay that whole process, let’s throw it into chaos”. And I think that would be a profound mistake.’
Also appearing on Marr, Mr Khan was shown footage of his comments rejecting a second poll in July 2016 because the British people had ‘had a say’. But he insisted his U-turn was not backing a re-run but giving the public ‘a say for the first time on the outcome’.
He dismissed suggestions he was trying to distract from his track record as mayor. Mr Khan is the most senior Labour figure so far to publicly call for a second referendum. Anti-Brexit campaigners are hoping to use the party’s conference next week to change its official policy in favour of another vote.
But Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner yesterday told Sky’s Sophy Ridge a fresh referendum would give Theresa May a ‘lifeline’.
The party’s international trade spokesman said the 2016 campaign had caused ‘real divisions’, adding: ‘I think the challenge now is to try to heal society.’ But Labour has not taken the option of another vote off the table.
Tories last night lined up to criticise Mr Khan. Former Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers said: ‘It is so undemocratic to ask people to vote again just because there is an elite establishment that does not like the answer they were given the first time.’
"The reality is the British public had a say.They voted and they voted to leave" sodia khan july 21, 2016 The people must get a final say. This means a public vote on any deal... alongside the option of staying in Khan Yesterday
TRUE, there is powerful evidence that former Labour leader Michael Foot accepted payments from Soviet agents to keep the Left-wing magazine he edited afloat.
But was he really in league with this country’s enemies? Or was this just another example of his extreme naivety?
Whatever the truth, a new book claims MI6 officers were so convinced Mr Foot was a paid informant of the USSR that they planned to warn the Queen of his links with the KGB if he became Prime Minister.
No doubt his Left-wing policies would have harmed this country. But as he showed when he attacked the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia – and again when he backed Margaret Thatcher over the Falklands – fundamentally he was on Britain’s side.
The big question is whether the same can be said of the present Labour leader’s entourage, who make little secret of their support for enemies of the West.
Take Jeremy Corbyn’s adviser, Andrew Murray – a communist for 40 years who has been barred from entering Ukraine for backing pro- Moscow separatists. Or Seumas Milne, his strategy director, who is a veteran apologist for the Soviet Union.
Or consider the Shadow Chancellor, who has said IRA killers should be ‘honoured’— and names Karl Marx’s Das Kapital as the book that has influenced him most.
Then there’s the leader himself, who has shared many platforms with anti-Western terrorists – and invited convicted IRA members to the Commons two weeks after their associates tried to murder Mrs Thatcher and her Cabinet in Brighton.
The Queen won’t need MI6 to warn her about the dangers posed by Mr Corbyn if, God forbid, he comes to power. They’re on view for the whole world to see. IN his latest bid for attention, selfpublicist Sadiq Khan calls for a second EU referendum, which he hopes would reverse Brexit. Leave aside the London mayor’s failure to explain how his multioption ballot would work – or how he would silence calls for the ‘ best of three’ if the result went his way. With violent crime on the rampage in the capital, shouldn’t he concentrate on the job he’s paid for?