Labour’s Angela Rayner says second referendum on Brexit would be ‘disastrous’ ‘I think that would be disastrous for us as members of Parliament to go back to the people with it’

“Democracy itself is an issue here” Angela Rayner

Labour‘s shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said holding another public vote on Brexit would be “disastrous” despite the party being committed to holding such a vote.

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The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne was speaking on the ITV Peston show just hours after MPs voted to block a no-deal Brexit and Theresa May lost control of the process in a series of humiliating votes.

Host Robert Peston pointed out that just two weeks ago Labour’s shadow Chancellor John McDonnell had sat in the same chair and said that an amendment for a second vote would have already tabled by the Labour Party by this stage.

But when he asked her about when Labour would make their stated demand for a second referendum she responded that such a move would not be preferable to finding a consensus in Parliament on Brexit.

‘Disastrous’

She told him: “What we’ve always said is we want to find a deal, we said we respected the result of the referendum, we want to genuinely find it…

“But we said that to avoid a no-deal, a catastrophic no-deal, or Theresa May’s disastrous deal, that if that’s the only way forward that we would put that back to the people.

“But I think that would be disastrous for us, as members of Parliament, to go back to the people with it because we would have failed in trying to find a consensus.

“The conference decision was very clear that if we were to avoid a no-deal as disastrous Brexit scenario under the Conservatives then we would go back to the people.

“I think personally as politicians if we have to go back to the people we’ve failed. I’m not in that situation now, I want to reach out, and Jeremy has said that the Labour Party wants to find a deal that puts jobs and the economy first.

“We have to do that. Democracy itself is an issue here, many members of Parliament have said that. I think the will is there to do that, Theresa May is not listening.”

People’s Vote

Mr McDonnell said two weeks ago that a so-called People’s Vote amendment would be tabled once Theresa May put her Brexit deal to another vote.

That vote was lost in the Commons by 149 votes on Tuesday night but Labour has yet to put forward an amendment. Mr McDonnell told the ITV Good Morning Britain show on Thursday that Labour would only back a second vote “if there was a logjam in Parliament that had to be broken … that’s the only reason it would happen”.

But the point has been met with consternation by some Labour MPs who pointed to Labour’s policy announcement that it did support a second vote.