McDonnell: Why second referendum is ‘inevitable’

A SECOND Brexit referendum looks ‘inevitable’ if Theresa May cannot get her deal through the Commons, John McDonnell said yesterday.

The Shadow Chancellor said that if Labour is not able to force a general election, a ‘people’s vote’ is the most likely option.

The comments vindicate the Prime Minister’s warning earlier this month that if her deal was rejected, the risks were ‘no deal or no Brexit at all’.

Mr McDonnell’s intervention also exposed deep splits at the very top of Labour. While he indicated that Remain would be on the ballot paper in any second vote, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman said a referendum was only one option.

And he said that even if one were held, Labour had not decided if it would allow people to vote to stay in the EU.

The Labour leader is known to be lukewarm about a second referendum, and has previously warned that the result of the 2016 vote must be respected.

Last night Brexiteers seized upon Mr McDonnell’s comments to argue that the call for a second referendum betrays the 17.4million who voted to leave in June 2016. And they pointed out that only in the summer he said a second vote could lead to violence on the streets.

Asked about Mr McDonnell’s remarks yesterday, Mrs May said: ‘His comments about the second referendum show that what the Labour Party want to do is frustrate Brexit. They want to overturn the will of the British people.’

Mr McDonnell, in an interview with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, suggested that a second referendum was ‘on the table’.

‘We want a deal that protects jobs and the economy,’ he said. ‘If the Government can’t achieve that, we think we should have a general election ... If that’s not possible we’ll be calling upon the Government then to join us in a public vote.’

Asked to confirm it was ‘inevitable’ that there would be a second referendum if Labour failed to force a general election, he said: ‘That’s right.

‘We’ve said our policy is if we can’t get a general election well then the other option which we’ve kept on the table is the people’s vote, a public vote.’

He said he did not know which way a second referendum would go, or how he would vote because it depended on the nature of the deal being offered. He could support a Labour-negotiated deal but not the Prime Minister’s.

‘We couldn’t support the current deal. As time moves on we think we can build consensus around a compromise. If we can’t, well then the people decide.’

Tory deputy chairman James Cleverly tweeted: ‘Labour are making their position increasingly explicit: Vote down the PM’s deal then push for a second referendum. They don’t want to honour the referendum result, they want to stop Brexit.’

Mr McDonnell’s description of a public vote being ‘the other option’ – singular – was contradicted yesterday by Mr Corbyn’s spokesman.

He said ‘other options’ were still on the table, and would not even confirm that Remain should be on the ballot if there was a second referendum.

‘Overturn the will of the British people’