Labour leader seeks to balance pressure from rival wings of party before PM reveals her Brexit plan B

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Jeremy Corbyn is likely to refrain from making fresh moves towards backing a second referendum until after the government’s Brexit plan B is voted on later this month, as he seeks to balance pressure from rival wings of his party.

Labour strategists believe there is a firm majority both in the shadow cabinet and in parliament against an immediate shift towards full-throated support for a referendum, the Guardian understands.

They are also keen for the focus in the coming days to remain on Theresa May’s efforts to rework the Irish backstop, after her Brexit deal was defeated by a historic margin of 230 votes last week.

Labour wants to prioritise pursuing its own version of Brexit – with a customs union, a close relationship to the single market, and stronger protections for workers’ rights and environmental standards.

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The prime minister is due to table a motion on Monday setting out the next steps in the Brexit process, which is set to be voted on by MPs on 29 January.

If an amendment calling for a people’s vote is tabled, Labour would not whip MPs to vote against it – but has not yet committed to whipping them to support it, either.

Corbyn is also likely to table his own amendment, setting out Labour’s plans for a reworked Brexit deal. Labour could also support some of the backbench efforts to find a compromise that can win majority backing in parliament.

Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, said: “I think a second referendum is a part of our armoury. It’s there in the party conference resolution; it’s something that we see as part of the toolkit in order to ensure that we get the kind of Brexit that can bring the 52% and the 48% back together.”

Together with close Corbyn allies Jon Trickett, Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery, Gardiner is among those in the shadow cabinet who are less enthusiastic about the party pivoting immediately to wholehearted support for a referendum.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, appeared keen to push Labour’s policy in that direction in a carefully worded speech on Saturday, and some shadow cabinet colleagues believe he is positioning himself as the champion of a people’s vote.

The “composite motion” hammered out at party conference states that if Labour cannot secure a general election, “Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote”.

Starmer said Labour was in the “third phase” of the conference motion – after voting against the government’s deal, and trying to force a general election with a vote of no confidence.

He told an audience in London that left only two options: a Labour-style Brexit deal, which would involve “tradeoffs and compromises”; or a public vote.

He built on the comments on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, saying that in the event of a second referendum “I will campaign for in and I will vote for in”.

Starmer also acknowledged that any deal hammered out at this stage was likely to have to include a backstop – though Labour later insisted that did not mean the party could sign up to May’s withdrawal agreement.

Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, is also widely believed to be more warmly disposed to the idea of a referendum than some shadow cabinet colleagues.

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The MP David Lammy warned on Sunday that some Labour MPs could leave the party if it does not swing its weight behind another referendum.

He accused Corbyn of “moving the goalposts” after the failure of last week’s vote of no confidence. “I think we have an open goal here and I would like the Labour party to go through the door and score the goal,” he told Sky News.

Rival groups of Labour MPs are canvassing support for alternative options that could come to the fore in the days ahead.

Backers of a Norway-style “single market 2.0” claim that at least 75 Labour MPs are firmly opposed to a referendum and prefer a softer Brexit; while people’s vote campaigners say they have two-thirds of the party’s 256 MPs on board.

Labour strategists accept that support for a referendum is likely to increase as the risk of a no-deal Brexit is heightened in the run-up to the article 50 deadline on 29 March.

A series of shadow cabinet ministers will visit leave-voting constituencies on Monday, in a bid to underlined Labour’s determination not to retreat to just representing “remoania”, as some party figures call it.

They will criticise the government’s spending on no-deal planning, saying the £1.5bn allocated for this year alone could go instead to other public spending priorities.

Corbyn said he was ready to talk to May, but not while she is engaged in what he called “dangerous and unnecessary no-deal brinkmanship”.



“May’s no deal threat is empty and hugely expensive, wasting billions of pounds we should be spending on vital public services. It’s a pointless and damaging attempt to appease a faction in her own party when she now needs to reach out to overcome this crisis,” Corbyn said.