Corbyn hints that he’d put Remain on ballot paper
JEREMY Corbyn has hinted there should be an option to Remain if there is a second Brexit referendum.
The Labour leader had already revealed he would consider another vote if Theresa May’s deal is voted down in the Commons but no general election is called.
However, his admission yesterday marks the first time he has suggested an option to stay in the EU would have to be on the ballot paper.
Mr Corbyn’s comments came as one of his frontbenchers backed a second referendum – an apparent breach of the party’s Brexit policy – while another claimed the Opposition was ready to form a government on Wednesday morning.
Mr Corbyn told ITV that he did not believe Mrs May’s deal will pass the Commons, branding it ‘ridiculous’. He added: ‘It’s not going to work. Everybody knows that.’
He said a second referendum would have to be ‘qualitatively different to the one held before’ – suggesting the choice would be between the options of a specific Brexit deal and Remain.
He reiterated that should Mrs May’s deal be voted down, his party’s top priority is a general election. However, he admitted that ‘other options should remain on the table’. His comments came after shadow sports minister Rosena Allin-Khan spoke at a People’s Vote rally yesterday in support of a second referendum.
‘When this deal is voted down by Parliament, I want us to call for a general election the very next day and if that is rejected then we need a people’s vote,’ Dr Allin-Khan said.
‘ Do not let them tell you it is betraying the will of the people because the biggest betrayal is that of our children, our hospital patients, our much- valued NHS workforce. We have had two general elections in the last three years and nobody is telling us that they were undemocratic.’
By contrast, Labour’s Cabinet Office spokesman Jon Trickett MP warned: ‘If people feel that the privileged political elite has decided by subterfuge to find a way of reversing the previous referendum, that would cause us some difficulty, and rightly so.’
Mr Trickett, a key ally of the Labour leader, said his constituents in Hemsworth in West Yorkshire had voted overwhelmingly to Leave.
‘I represent, if you like, Brexit Central, my seat is one of the strongest Brexit areas. Those people believe their voice would be listened to and that we would have a proper Brexit which would put jobs first. That is not what we’ve got.’
He insisted he still wanted to take Britain out of the EU, saying: ‘We have decided that we are leaving because we have listened to the ... instruction from the people.’
Mr Trickett claimed Labour would be ready to form a minority government this week.
This could only realistically happen if the Government lost a vote on Theresa May’s deal and a subsequent vote of no confidence.
Under the Fixed Term Parliament Act, any government that loses a no confidence vote has 14 days to pass a second confidence motion, or Parliament is dissolved and a general election called.
Mr Trickett said: ‘ Our preferred option, very, very strongly, is that we [have a general election] though we are ready to form a minority government should that be necessary – and it could happen on Wednesday morning – and to begin to reset the negotiation.’
‘Let’s see what happens’