The Labour leadership faces mounting pressure to clarify its position on Brexit after the local party in Lewisham selected a candidate who backs staying in the single market and the party’s international trade spokesman, Barry Gardiner, struggled to explain Labour’s position on the issue.

Gardiner was appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in his first full interview after a recording emerged of a private comment he made at a meeting in Brussels in March when he called parts of Labour’s policy as “bollocks”.

Explaining his remarks on Sunday, he reiterated that Labour policy was to assess the Brexit deal by the government’s own promises. “They said that they could secure the exact same benefits outside of the European Union as they could inside it. That is what they said. Our test is to hold them to account for that,” he said.

“Our position is that we will hold them to account to achieve what they promised the British people, which is that they will secure the exact same benefits outside of the EU as they did inside of the EU.”



Asked whether that meant Labour could never vote for the withdrawal deal, that Theresa May now acknowledges will not deliver the “exact same” benefits, Gardiner repeated that the policy was to hold the government to account.

Gardiner’s remarks came after Labour members in lewisham selected Janet Daby, the borough’s deputy mayor, as its candidate for the byelection. She won a sizeable majority of first preferences at the meeting and made it clear that she supported staying in the single market and the customs union.

Lewisham voted more than two to one in favour of remain in the 2016 referendum. The outgoing Labour MP, Heidi Alexander, who held the seat with a 21,000 majority less than a year ago, resigned to become Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayor for transport.

Alexander was also strongly pro-remain, so the election of a candidate with similar views will not change the balance in the parliamentary Labour party. Daby has also twice backed Jeremy Corbyn for leader.

The handling of the timing of the byelection, when the party leadership appeared to want to rush the process through without properly involving the local party, set the contest up as a battle between the left and the centre. The first ever shortlist that was all-women and also featured all minority ethnic candidates included a Momentum-backed candidate and another backed by Unite, but neither seriously challenged Daby.

Brexit policy is likely to play a big role in the byelection, due to take place on 14 June.



Ian McKenzie, the Lewisham constituency party chair and long-serving party loyalist, tweeted: “Our canvassers have to persuade former Labour voters that cite Labour’s failure to stop hard Brexit as the reason they are voting Lib now. It’s hard work.”

The Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable, opening the party’s campaign HQ in Lewisham, accused Labour of facilitating “the Conservatives’ chaotic Brexit”. He said his party was hoping to make the byelection a moment for voters to send a message to the government that Brexit was “not inevitable” and to warn Labour not to let Brexit happen by default.

“Every vote for the Lib Dems in Lewisham East is a warning to Labour’s leadership that they must act like the opposition and not simply wave through Brexit,” he said.

Meanwhile, under the aegis of the anti-Brexit youth movement For our Future, the Labour students chair, Melantha Chittenden, and Miriam Mirwitch of Young Labour have written a joint letter to Corbyn calling for a vote on Brexit at the Labour party Conference.

The letter calls for a voice for Labour party members, 75% of whom support a so-called people’s vote on the EU withdrawal deal.

Their letter said: “The referendum result was not representative of the views of young people across the country, nor the views of the wider party membership … Young people and working class people are the most likely to be negatively impacted by Brexit - the very people we as a party are meant to represent.

“This will be the biggest issue to affect our generation; we deserve to have our voices heard by our own party.”