Lib Dems have ‘gone back to plan A’ of a second Brexit referendum instead of revoking Article 50, says Layla Moran ‘Boris Johnson could have a runaway majority, that’s going to scare a lot of people’

Lib Dem candidate Layla Moran said the party has “gone back to plan A” and will now again advocate for a so-called “people’s vote” on Brexit rather than its previous pledge to simply revoke the entire process.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Ms Moran, who is running to hold on to the Oxford West seat, said it was now clear that the party would not win a majority and would instead return to calling for a second referendum.

The Lib Dems adopted the policy after Labour moved to back a second referendum on Brexit, but the party has failed to cut through according to current polling.

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‘Plan-A’

BBC Breakfast Presenter Naga Munchetty asked her: “I was under the impression the Liberal Democrat message was you’re scrapping Brexit – now you’re promising another referendum, a people’s vote?

“That is a change in tactic, we’re two weeks away from the general election, from the vote.”

Ms Moran responded: “What we’d always said was that we would only be able to do that if we had a majority Liberal Democrat government.”

The presenter cut in to say: “Which is not going to happen, is it?”

Ms Moran replied: “Exactly, exactly So that’s where we are now – we’ve gone back to plan A.”

The Lib Dems had previously argued that if they took power they would just unilaterally revoke the Article 50 process, something that is permissible legally according to the European Court of Justice.

‘Boris Johnson could have a runaway majority’

Ms Moran earlier said: “The main thing that happened in this election is when we first started, we thought it was going to be a four way race as in the European (Elections), the Brexit party was standing everywhere, there was no sign that they were going to do a deal with the Conservatives.”

“But when they stepped down in half those seats, we then started seeing what we see in most elections, which is a massive squeeze on the third party in our electoral system.

“And actually, I think that is the major factor that’s changed in this campaign. We will continue to be the party that started the People’s Vote, I launched the People’s Vote every time that we could in Parliament we pushed for People’s Vote.

“And actually what I think most people are going to wake up to in this poll is the stark realisation that Boris Johnson could have a runaway majority, that’s going to scare a lot of people.

“This has to be a wake up call to people out there. They need to look at the seats where the Liberal Democrats are second, or first even that’s 134 seats in this poll that we’ve seen come out this morning.

“And we are the only party that can stop Boris Johnson, because we are the only party that can take seats away from him in this election, and I think that’s what we’re waking up to this morning.”

A major MRP poll by YouGov released on Wednesday night forecast Boris Johnson will win the election with a majority of 68 in the House of Commons. The poll suggested the Lib Dems would only gain one more MP taking their total to 13.