Be on your guard (Picture: Getty Images)

It’s less than a year since Britain voted the Tories in, but Jeremy Corbyn has been warned there might be another election later this year.

Basically, the proverbial could hit the fan if we vote to leave the EU with David Cameron potentially stepping down, according to a senior Labour politician.

A referendum on EU membership could be as early as June this year.

Shadow defence minister Toby Perkins warned Corbyn that Cameron might quit even if we stay – although Cameron himself has vowed to stay on whatever the result.


Mr Perkins said Labour needed to get on an election footing just in case.

People reckon Cameron could step down after the EU referendum (Picture: Reuters)

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Writing on the LabourList website, he said: ‘If Labour is confronted with a general election whilst intellectually and organisationally under-prepared, divided and under-resourced we would be hurtling towards catastrophe.’

We normally have fixed term parliaments with elections every five years, and another one isn’t due until 2020.

But if the Tories had a new leader who called for a vote, Labour would find it difficult to refuse.

‘The prospect of the Prime Minister standing down in the event of a vote to leave has been often mooted,’ Mr Perkins said.

Toby Perkins (Picture: PA)

‘However, I believe that the forces unleashed within the Conservative party are so great that, whether Cameron wins or loses, many of their MPs and activists will feel it is time for a change at the top.

‘Cameron fired the starting gun on the race to succeed him when he announced that he will not fight another general election and, as Tony Blair can testify, once the lid is off the bottle it can be very difficult to re-seal it.

‘In the event that Cameron goes, I expect his successor to look very keenly at whether the Labour party is capable of fighting a snap general election.’

Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, an early election can be called if two thirds of the House of Commons agrees.