Not supporting a People’s Vote means colluding with May, Corbyn warned

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking at St Marys in the Castle during a visit to Hastings in East Sussex. Thursday January 17, 2019.Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

Jeremy Corbyn has been targeted in his own back yard by a campaign urging him to back a second referendum to avoid colluding with Theresa May.

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The anti-Brexit youth campaign Our Future Our Choice (OFOC) have paid for a wraparound advert on one of Corbyn’s local papers in north London.

In an open letter inside an Islington newspaper the group warns Corbyn that the Labour leader he cannot get the general election he wants.

This, it says, leaves a choice: “Either collude with the Tories to pass a second-rate deal that saves Theresa May’s premiership, or we can support a public vote on Brexit.”

Cathleen Clarke, an OFOC activist who belongs to Labour and Momentum, organised the letter.

Clarke said: “Jeremy Corbyn has a choice. He can allow a Tory Brexit deal to pass, by supporting it directly or letting his MPs vote for it, or he can back a public vote.

“Young people, particularly young Labour activists, members, and supporters, desperately want him to do the latter, and that’s why we took the step to get a message directly to him through his local newspaper.”

Polling carried out by YouGov in September 2018 found that 86% of Labour members want a second referendum.

The party agreed at 2018 conference to back a new referendum but only if it failed to get a general election that would allow it to seek a better deal than that won by May and defeated by MPs.

Other opposition benches, including the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, have called on Labour to support their proposal for a second referendum.