Corbyn admits he hasn't even read the deal
... and doesn’t know how he’d vote in a new referendum
JEREMY Corbyn faced ridicule yesterday as he admitted he had not even read the whole Brexit deal – and did not know how he would vote in a second referendum.
Despite insisting Theresa May’s agreement failed his party’s ‘six tests’, he conceded he had not read ‘every last word’ of the withdrawal agreement.
And the Labour leader also said he ‘didn’t know’ how he would vote if the issue of Britain’s EU membership was voted on again. He voted remain in 2016.
Last night, political opponents criticised Mr Corbyn, suggesting he was determined to vote down the deal simply to force another general election.
James Cleverly, the Tory vice chairman, responded to a tweet from the Labour leader saying the deal failed the party’s six tests by saying: ‘ How the hell would you know? You haven’t even read it.’
robbie Gibb, No 10’s director of communications, added: ‘Jeremy Corbyn admits he is opposing the Brexit deal without even reading it. He’s putting his own party interests ahead of the national interest.’ In an interview with Sky News’s Sophy ridge On Sunday programme yesterday, Mr Corbyn played down calls to push for another vote on the UK’s membership of the EU.
And he said Labour ‘couldn’t stop’ Brexit because ‘ we don’t have the votes in Parliament’.
He said: ‘ There was a referendum in 2016, a majority voted to leave the EU, there are many reasons why people voted.
‘I don’t think you call a referendum and then say you don’t like the result and go away from it.
‘You’ve got to understand why people voted and negotiate the best deal you can.’
Commenting further on the possibility of a second referendum Mr Corbyn added: ‘It’s an option for the future but it’s not an option for today, if there was a referendum tomorrow what’s it going to be on, what’s the question going to be?’
But when asked which way he would vote in such a referendum, the Labour leader said: ‘I don’t know how I am going to vote, what the options would be at that time.’
The comments will disappoint the pro-Remain majority in his party, many of whom have been urging him to throw his weight behind a so- called People’s Vote. Mr Corbyn was also asked if he had read the whole 585page withdrawal agreement.
He replied: ‘I’ve read a lot of it, not every last word. I’ve read many summaries and many other analyses, as I’m sure you have as well.’
Mr Corbyn rubbished Theresa May’s Brexit deal, saying it was a ‘one-way agreement’ in which the EU ‘calls all the shots’.
He said: ‘We’ll vote against this deal because it doesn’t meet our tests.
‘We don’t believe it serves the interest of this country, therefore the Government have to go back to the EU and renegotiate rapidly. There’s 500 pages in this document much of which is quite vague.
‘Where’s the guarantee on environmental protections, where’s the guarantee on consumer protections, where’s the guarantee on workers’ rights?’
Mr Corbyn said Labour would focus on negotiating a permanent customs arrangement with the EU, because without it the UK would ‘lose on jobs, lose on investment and we lose on future economic development’.
Shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti later said Mrs May’s Brexit deal was ‘the worst kind of bureaucratic fudge that doesn’t deliver for anyone’.
She told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show that the deal was ‘designed to look as if it can please everybody and it can’t’.
Mr Marr also appeared to lose his cool with Baroness Chakrabarti during her interview.
He asked her why she supported plans to seek a general election on a pro-Brexit manifesto despite voting to Remain in 2016.
She replied: ‘I’m a democrat, I don’t know about you Andrew but I’m a democrat.’
A visibly annoyed Mr Marr responded: ‘Don’t try and patronise me, I’m as much a democrat as you are.’
The peer then said: ‘I certainly wouldn’t try to patronise you, I’m sure you would never try and patronise me.’
‘It doesn’t meet our tests’