Corbyn faces pressure over new referendum
Leading Labour figures put more pressure on Corbyn to agree to a second Brexit referendum
Jeremy Corbyn is to come under fresh pressure from his deputy, Tom Watson, to demand a second referendum as a price for Labour’s support for Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Mr Watson will today ratchet up the pressure on the Labour leader over Brexit as he calls on the party to live up to its values by offering a clear commitment on a second referendum. Cross-party talks get under way again today as part of attempts to get Mrs May’s Brexit deal through Parliament.
JEREMY CORBYN is under fresh pressure after two of his most senior frontbenchers demanded a second referendum on the terms of the UK’S exit from the European Union.
Tom Watson, his deputy, will today call on the party to live up to its values by offering a clear commitment on a second Brexit referendum.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said a second ballot had to be part of any cross-party agreement to get Theresa May’s Brexit deal agreed with the Tories through the House of Commons.
Sir Keir told the Guardian last night: “A significant number of Labour MPS, probably 120 if not 150, would not back a deal if it hasn’t got a confirmatory vote. If the point of the exercise is to get a sustainable majority, over several weeks or months of delivering on the implementation, you can’t leave a confirmatory vote out of the package.” The interventions push the talks between senior Conservative and Labour figures, which have been going on for five weeks, ever closer to collapse.
The Prime Minister was last night under pressure from Cabinet ministers to scrap cross-party Brexit talks with Labour and try to seek a compromise in Parliament instead. Phillip Hammond, the Chancellor, is understood to have told colleagues that they are being held on the “false premise” that a politically acceptable solution can ever be agreed.
Teams from both parties – including Sir Keir for Labour – are due to meet again today for more talks. But Mrs May and Mr Corbyn are not scheduled to meet, which suggests any agreement is some way off.
In a speech to Labour supporters today, Mr Watson will warn that party activists are increasingly “unhappy” with its Brexit policy and “plead” with them not to “abandon ship” in next week’s European Parliament elections. Delivering a lecture to mark the 25th anniversary of John Smith’s death, he will contrast the late Labour leader’s “pro-european internationalism” with Mr Corbyn’s refusal to adopt a position in favour of Remain. Praising Mr Smith – who led the party from 1992 to 1994 before his death aged 53 from a heart attack – Mr Watson is expected to say that if he were alive today he would have joined scores of frontbenchers, MPS and members in calling for a second referendum. He will also claim that Smith would have provided a much “stronger counter narrative” to the Euroscepticism that has “dominated politics for the 20 years leading up to the EU referendum”.
“I have no doubt that he would have taken a stand very similar to that of his deputy, Margaret Beckett, and backed a people’s vote as a way out of this destructive mess,” he will add.
In contrast, Mr Corbyn spent the two decades leading up to his election as Labour leader criticising the European Union, which he has previously likened to a “great Frankenstein”.
The speech follows months of infighting within Labour over Brexit, with Mr Watson leading calls from the party’s Europhile wing for a change in policy. His intervention comes after former prime minister Tony Blair yesterday said that many voters would not vote for the party because it had been “hopeless on the question of Brexit”.
The three-time election winner said that if the UK left the EU without a deal, there would be a “silent revolution” in which the two main parties would be punished by Europhile voters who would “sweep them away”.