Corbyn under fire as he rules out Brexit block – even after election win
COMMENTS BRANDED ‘DEEPLY DEPRESSING’ Osborne makes scathing attack on Tory party
JEREMY Corbyn has been criticised by Remain supporters inside and outside Labour after saying his party would go ahead with Brexit if it won a snap general election in the new year.
The opposition leader used an interview with the Guardian to also say that he would recommend the party advocate Brexit if there was a second referendum as he hit out at EU laws on state aid that he said blocked investment.
But his remarks were attacked by Labour MPS who believe he should swing the party behind a second referendum that would give people a chance to stay in the EU.
Labour’s former shadow business minister Chuka Umunna said the interview was “deeply depressing and disappointing”.
Writing on Facebook he said: “Brexit is essentially a project of the hard right of British politics who want to turn Britain into a lightly regulated, offshore tax haven for the super rich, devoid of proper protections for workers, and one which seeks to dump the blame for the UK’S problems on immigrants.
“Labour should stop pretending there is ‘good’ Brexit deal and we should certainly not be sponsoring this project because Brexit is the problem – it solves nothing.”
Mr Corbyn told the Guardian that if there was a general election in the new year sparked by the parliamentary deadlock over Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement, he would “go back and negotiate (with the EU) and see what the timetable would be”.
Asked about a second referendum, which is favoured by many of his MPS and Labour supporters, he added: “It would be a matter for the party to decide what the policy would be; but my proposal at this moment is that we go forward, trying to get a customs union with the EU in which we would be able to be proper trading partners.”
Labour passed a motion at its party conference in Liverpool in September that it would seek a general election as its first choice, but left open the option of supporting a second referendum.
Mr Corbyn and other opposition frontbenchers have claimed that were Labour to replace Mrs May’s Government by some means, they would be able to go back to Brussels to renegotiate her deal.
But Ilford North Labour MP Wes Streeting, a critic of Mr Corbyn, attacked his remarks, saying: “Why peddle this myth that Labour would be able to renegotiate a Brexit deal at this 11th hour?
“How would Labour’s Brexit be any better than remaining in the EU?
“Our members and voters are overwhelmingly pro-european. This lets them, and our country, down.” The SNP also attacked Mr Corbyn, with Westminster leader Ian Blackford calling him “the midwife to the delivery of the Tory’s Brexit plans”.
Mr Blackford said: “Jeremy Corbyn has finally come off the fence he’s been sat on for the past two years. “But unfathomably he’s come down on the same side as Theresa May.
“The Labour party is incapable of providing opposition to the worst UK government that most people can remember.”
Lib Dem leader Vince Cable added that Mr Corbyn “refuses once again to take the blinkers off”.
He added: “He is ignoring the concerns of his own supporters and the economic damage experts warn Brexit will do to the UK economy. On Brexit, you simply cannot put a cigarette paper between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.” FORMER Tory chancellor George Osborne has launched a scathing attack on the party, warning it faces a prolonged period in opposition “unless it engages more with modern Britain” and changes direction on Brexit. The politician-turned editor of the Evening Standard has been a vocal critic of Theresa May - who sacked him from the Cabinet in 2016. Mr Osborne, who said he had warned then PM David Cameron against holding the referendum in the first place, also attacked the “reckless decision of hard Brexiteers” to pursue a no-deal Brexit, saying: “I don’t think the country voted to mobilise the Army, stockpile medicine, hoard food and go around the world buying every fridge available. “That is not what was offered and that is now what is happening.” Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement is due to be voted on by MPS in January. But few expect it to be approved by a heavily divided Commons, and Tory MPS including Cabinet ministers appear to have begun to polarise between those who might support a no-deal Brexit and those who would actively battle against it.
We should certainly not be sponsoring this project because Brexit is the problem – it solves nothing
CHUKA UMUNNA