Labour should table a vote of no confidence in Theresa May as soon as possible in an effort to stop the government stumbling into a disastrous Brexit without a deal with the EU, the Labour MP Stephen Kinnock has said.

The backbencher, who is the son of the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, called on his party to challenge the government directly in the House of Commons, saying that time was running out to stop a hard Brexit.

He said the motion should read: “That this house has no confidence in the ability of her majesty’s government to negotiate the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU in such a way as to protect and promote the jobs, livelihoods and long-term interests of the British people.”

The prime minister does not have enough of her own Conservative MPs to win a vote, but her government is being supported by the Democratic Unionist party, giving her a working majority of about 13. It would be unlikely that any Conservative or DUP MPs would back a Labour motion of no confidence in the government.

However, Kinnock argued that such a motion was necessary even if it ended up unifying the other side because the Commons should have the chance to object to May’s Brexit plan.

“The answer to that is simply that the government is making such a hideous mess of this supremely important task that parliament must be given the opportunity to decide whether they should be allowed to continue,” he wrote in an article for the Guardian.



“The government’s approach to the Brexit negotiations is heading for the rocks. It is Labour’s patriotic duty to demonstrate that we are ready, willing and able to take the helm, and to steer our country into safer waters.”

He said the motion should be tabled, debated and voted upon as soon as possible as “time is running out and with every day that passes the government stumbles closer to the disastrous no-deal scenario”.

The last government to be defeated in a no-confidence motion was James Callaghan’s minority Labour administration in 1979. Callaghan lost the vote by 311 to 310, which led to the election of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative prime minister.