Party could campaign on promise to negotiate better Brexit deal than May, says shadow minister

Labour could offer to hold a referendum on an EU deal that it had renegotiated as part of an early general election manifesto, a shadow cabinet minister has suggested.

Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, said Labour could campaign on a promise to negotiate a better Brexit deal than that secured by Theresa May, and said he personally believed that any such deal could then be put to the public.

Labour’s official policy is to push for a general election if the prime minister fails to get her Brexit deal through parliament, but that all other options remain on the table.

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Jeremy Corbyn is facing demands from MPs – including several shadow cabinet members – to throw his weight behind a referendum if Labour cannot force an early election.

Pressure has intensified after a major opinion poll commissioned by the People’s Vote campaign indicated Labour could suffer a backlash from voters if it failed to oppose Brexit in parliament. The YouGov poll of more than 25,000 people indicated a second referendum is backed by 75% of Labour voters.

Gardiner, interviewed on Sky News, said the quickest way of getting a people’s vote was to have a general election, because legislating for a referendum would take far longer.

At an election, Labour “would set out what we would seek to negotiate in Europe to try and deliver,”, he told presenter Sophy Ridge.

Gardiner said May had botched her EU negotiations because of her red lines. “If we as a new, incoming Labour government were to go to Europe without those red lines we know that we could get a different, better deal.

“At that stage it makes sense to go to the country and say, ‘here we are, this is what we have managed to negotiate, this is the deal that we have managed to conclude because we don’t have the same red lines as Theresa May.’

“And it seems to me, at a personal level, what I would then say is that is the time when we would then say to people, ‘now make your decision on what we have managed to conclude,’” he said.

Gardiner’s comments come after the YouGov poll found Labour trail the Tories at 34% to 40% as it stands, with Labour’s support falling to 26% if Labour MPs voted with the Tories to bring about Brexit.

A Labour source said the party had made clear its priority was a good deal or a general election but without these, “all options” remained on the table, including a campaign for a public vote.

In further signs of tensions over the People’s Vote campaign, Emily Thornberry accused it of seeking to “slap the Labour party around”.

The shadow foreign secretary told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “What I would like them to be particularly focusing on is taking the arguments as to why we should remain in the European Union to people who voted to leave and to try to change some hearts and minds, rather than using it – as some people I think do – as an opportunity to attack the Labour party and the leadership of the Labour party.”

A People’s Vote spokesman said Thornberry was “badly mistaken” in her views about the campaign, adding: “What we are doing is highlighting the biggest poll on Brexit yet, which shows that Labour will suffer its worst electoral defeat since the 1930s if it continues promising to enable some sort of Brexit to go ahead.

“In that situation, it won’t be us slapping the leadership but millions of Labour voters who want the party to fight for the public services, rights and living standards that will otherwise be hammered by any kind of Brexit deal.”