Labour begins conference showdown

Split opposition in desperate search for Brexit plan

BRIGHTON: Britain’s main opposition Labour Party began its annual conference desperately searching for a coherent Brexit plan to stem a potential drubbing in a looming election.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s moment of truth comes with the crisis-torn country hurtling towards an Oct 31 exit from the European Union without a plan for trade.

Yet the same divisions over Europe that saw Boris Johnson’s right-wing Conservatives lose their working majority are also tearing apart Labour on the left.

The 119-year-old party’s support base consists of cosmopolitan city-dwelling europhiles and traditional working-class communities that rejected Brussels in the 2016 referendum.

Polls show these views have become even more entrenched today – a polarisation that further complicates Corbyn’s bid to find a unifying stance.

The strongly anti-European Brexit Party and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats are eroding Labour’s support on both flanks, according to recent polls.

Labour officials hunkered down in a swanky hotel on England’s south coast yesterday to whittle down their Brexit options to a single position that will be either rejected or approved today.

Corbyn has given every indication that he wants Labour to stay neutral on the defining issue of UK politics.

“No, I am not sitting on the fence,” he insisted in a testy ITV interview on Friday.

He has promised to negotiate a new divorce deal that maintains closer EU relations and then hold another referendum in which remaining in the bloc is the other option.

But he would not say which of the two he would campaign for – or whether he actually wants to stay or go.

“The British people will make that final decision,” Corbyn told ITV.

Efforts to keep the peace by appeasing both wings of his party are not sitting well with voters ahead of an early election that most expect to happen within months. — AFP