Party wants to reduce no-deal threat but would prefer shorter extension than is proposed

Labour has said it would support Yvette Cooper’s amendment to extend the article 50 negotiating period to allow time for the UK to avoid crashing out of the EU without a deal, giving it a very good chance of being carried if selected for a vote by the Commons Speaker.

The party said it wanted to “reduce the threat of the chaos of a no-deal” but added that it would prefer to shorten the nine-month extension proposed by Cooper to avoid accusations that it wanted to permanently defer Brexit.



The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, added that Labour wanted ideally to reduce the extension period to “something around” three months because the party was anxious “not to be seen in any way to be kicking the can down the road”.

He said that while the party wanted to be “flexible about the timescale in which we can achieve an alternative” Brexit deal, it wanted an extension to be as short as possible.

Labour’s shadow cabinet met on Tuesday morning to discuss tactics before the afternoon’s Brexit debate in which MPs will vote on a range of amendments selected by the Speaker at lunchtime.

Full list: amendments to May’s statement on defeat of her Brexit bill Read more

With the support of several Conservative as well as Labour MPs, the Cooper amendment is well placed to be carried. It allows MPs time to debate a bill that would delay the UK’s exit from the EU so attempts can be made to negotiate a better deal.

A party source said: “The Cooper bill could give MPs a temporary window to agree a deal that can bring the country together. We will aim to amend the Cooper bill to shorten the possible article 50 extension.”

The backing of Labour’s frontbench for Cooper’s amendment had not been certain after Jon Trickett, the influential shadow Cabinet Office minster, said on Monday that voters in his constituency would regard support for the measure as a failure to respect the result of the 2016 referendum.

Trickett said he felt “it may look to people as if we’re trying to somehow remove the earlier decision, which was to Brexit”, by voting for an amendment intended to extend article 50.

Labour would not say immediately if its frontbench would support other amendments backed by many of its backbenchers, including an amendment put down by Caroline Spelman, a Conservative, which invites MPs to declare that they reject a no-deal Brexit.

MPs also hope to be able to vote on an amendment put down by the senior Tory backbencher Graham Brady that calls for the unpopular Irish backstop to be removed from the Brexit deal Theresa May negotiated with the EU.

Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, said May was at risk of openly contradicting herself if, as expected, she asked MPs to back Brady’s amendment. He pointed out that a fortnight ago the prime minister declared that any withdrawal agreement reached with the EU would contain the backstop, regardless of any Commons vote on her deal.

Two weeks ago, May told MPs: “The simple truth is that the EU was not prepared to agree to this and rejecting the backstop altogether means no deal.”

Starmer said on Tuesday: “Either the comments the prime minister made to parliament two weeks ago were correct, in which case the government backing the Brady amendment is absurd, or they weren’t, which raises equally serious issues.”

Starmer had been due to open Tuesday afternoon’s Brexit debate for Labour, speaking after his government counterpart, Stephen Barclay, but will now close it after a late change of mind by the government to put May on first, meaning Jeremy Corbyn will respond.

May is expected to urge MPs to support the Brady amendment, which “requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border”.

Its chances of success are on a knife-edge because half a dozen or so Tory remainers are thought unlikely to support it, partly because they believe it would have no impact on the EU.

Labour’s frontbench will not support Brady but a handful of the party’s backbenchers have indicated they would support it, including the pro-Brexit MPs John Mann and Jim Fitzpatrick.