Labour plays down tensions over Brexit after Kinnock intervention

EMILY Thornberry has played down tensions within Labour over Britain’s Brexit negotiations, describing an intervention by former party leader Lord Kinnock as a “technical disagreement”.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary said remaining in the EEA (European Economic Area) was not appropriate for Britain because “Britain is too large an economy and it’s too complex”.

She told BBC Five Live’s Pienaar’s Politics that the Government should be negotiating a “British-style deal” with the EU, adding: “We simply can’t cram our economy into the structure that is the EEA.”

Her comments came after Lord Kinnock said that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will commit a “serious evasion of duty” if he does not change course and back the UK retaining key aspects of the Single Market after Brexit.

The peer signalled that Labour MPs should defy Mr Corbyn if he repeats instructions to abstain in parliamentary votes on Britain staying in the EEA.

Lord Kinnock was one of 83 Labour peers who rebelled against Mr Corbyn and backed an amendment to Brexit legislation in the upper house for the UK to remain in the EEA, a grouping which allows for the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital within the European Single Market.

Ms Thornberry said: “I just think this is a technical disagreement. In the end we want very much the same things – we want to be able to have the full benefits of being in the Single Market and the Customs Union and it’s a question of being able to negotiate something that works for us, so we can’t have an off-the-peg agreement because it’s just not going to fit us.”