Keir Starmer says party is clear any deal should be subject to a confirmatory public vote

Labour could fight a snap general election pledging to hold a public vote on any Brexit deal, Keir Starmer has said, saying the party was now clear that any deal should be subject to a confirmatory referendum.

Speaking after a mass demonstration in London in support of a second vote, which was addressed by the party’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, the shadow Brexit secretary was asked whether he could guarantee there would be a second referendum if Labour came to power.

“I would expect our manifesto to build on those commitments, both in relation to the type of deal and a public vote,” he told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show.

Starmer said “no one should doubt” his commitment to the Labour policy adopted at party conference: that a referendum would remain an option should the party fail to force a general election.

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“What the party has said is there must be a public vote and we said we’d either put down an amendment ourselves or support an amendment, and that needs to be between a credible leave option and remain,” he said.

“If a deal goes through, if the prime minister’s deal, if she tries it a third time, goes through, it ought to be subject to a lock or a check which is it’s got to be confirmed by the public.”

The shadow Cabinet Office minister, Jon Trickett, had sounded a note of caution before Starmer’s appearance on Marr, saying the party’s priority was to bring the country back together.

Asked about the People’s Vote march on Saturday, which organisers claimed was attended by a million people, he said: “It was a lovely crowd, but the job of the alternative government is to try to find a way of bringing all the sides together in our country, rather than dividing it in the way that the government has, on a Brexit, but a Brexit that works for everybody.”

MPs are expected to force a series of indicative Commons votes this week on possible Brexit options, though Labour is likely to face a dilemma as to whether to whip its MPs to support several options.

Ideas likely to be put to MPs, should the votes take place, include a second referendum and a softer Brexit, called “common market 2.0” by its supporters, who include high-profile Labour figures such as Stephen Kinnock and Lucy Powell.

Sources close to those involved in promoting the Norway-style plan have suggested the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been privately enthusiastic about the idea in meetings with the group’s leaders, who also include the Tories Nick Boles, Sir Oliver Letwin and Robert Halfon.

Supporters of the People’s Vote campaign may withhold their backing for a softer Brexit option, however, in the hope of forcing a second poll with the option to remain.

Theresa May is expected to begin the week by making a statement to the Commons on Monday before MPs are given the opportunity to vote on an amendable motion on the progress of the Brexit talks.

A key amendment has been tabled by tabled by Letwin and the Labour chair of the Brexit select committee, Hilary Benn, which would set aside Wednesday for MPs to take control of the House of Commons business, in order to hold the series of votes on different Brexit outcomes.

Though the amendment has been rejected on previous occasions, its backers are confident it will succeed and have been in private discussions with May’s deputy, David Lidington.

Should May put her Brexit deal to MPs for the third time this week, MPs are also likely to get the opportunity to vote by an amendment on a “confirmatory referendum”, drawn up by the Labour backbenchers Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, which the Labour frontbench is likely to back.

Speaking on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Benn said he had come round to the idea of a confirmatory referendum. “Whatever deal parliament is prepared to put forward should go back to the British people given the crisis that we’re in,” he said.

“Whoever is the leader of the Conservative party, if parliament decides that it is prepared to support a way forward, and if parliament decides that it then wants to put that to the British people in a confirmatory referendum, then the nation needs leadership that is prepared to compromise.

“That’s the crucial point, and the reason Theresa May is in such difficulty this morning is she has steadfastly refused to shift an inch, and it’s no good saying: ‘My door is open, come and talk to me,’ if her mind is closed and I’m afraid that’s what the last two and three-quarter years has demonstrated, plus there’s been an unwillingness to tell the British people the truth about the real choices we face.”