What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Theresa May rebuffed demands for a second EU referendum last nightdespite 700,000 protesters taking to the streets demanding a “people’s vote”.

The Prime Minister rejected calls for a fresh poll 48 hours after placard-waving campaigners swarmed on London urging a re-run.

She also raised the possibility of staying tied to EU rules - including freedom of movement - until 2022.

Just last week she said any extension to the transition period would run for a “few months” after its original end date of December 2020.

But last night she said: “A short extension to the implementation period would mean only one set of changes for businesses - at the point we move to the future relationship.

“But in any such scenario we would have to be out of this implementation period well before the end of this Parliament.”

(Image: AFP/Getty Images) (Image: parliamentlive.tv)



This Parliament is due to run until May 2022.

Updating MPs on last week’s EU summit, she said: “Serving our national interest will demand that we hold our nerve through these last stages of the negotiations, the hardest part of all.

“It will mean not giving in to those who want to stop Brexit with a politicians’ vote – politicians telling the people they got it wrong the first time and should try again.”

She added: “The Government does not support a second referendum.”

Conservative former cabinet minister Justine Greening also pressed the case for a second referendum if Parliament fails to support Mrs May’s deal.

She said: “The only inevitable way forward, whether we like it or not, will then be to allow people to decide by either a second referendum or a general election - and the former would surely be preferable to the latter.”

Addressing the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley claimed a second poll wuld deliver a bigger majority for quitting.

“I personally think, from my knocking on doors, there would be a bigger vote for Leave,” she said.

(Image: Getty Images)

“The fact is the people spoke. We had a people’s vote.”

MPs from all sides blasted the violent language aimed at Mrs May over the weekend.

Anonymous Tory Brexiteers were quoted as saying she should “bring a noose” to a potential showdown with backbenchers.

Another said she was entering “the killing zone”, while one who wants to topple her added: “Assassination is in the air.”

The PM told the Commons: “It is incumbent on all of us in public life to be careful about the language we use.

“There are passionate beliefs and passionate views that are held on this subject and other subjects but whatever the subject is we should all be careful about our language.”

Calling for disciplinary action, former Brexit minister Steve Baker said: “The person or persons who directed violent language at (Mrs May) have thoroughly disgraced themselves.

“I very much hope that they are discovered and I hope that she will withdraw the whip from them.”

Yvette Cooper, Labour chairwoman of the Home Affairs Committee, criticised what she described as “violent, dehumanising and frankly misogynistic language”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was among those who criticised the remarks, saying he hoped the debate following the Prime Minister’s statement on the October EU Council would be conducted “without some of the language reported in the press over the weekend”.

Branding the language “crass and violent, abhorrent and irresponsible”, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “Threats of violence against the Prime Minister or anyone else must be called out and those responsible held to account.”

No 10 sources said Mrs May had not been invited to tomorrow night’s meeting of the Tory 1922 Committee.