The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has accused the government of running down the clock and “bullying and threatening” MPs as it tried to force through Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
Speaking in Newport, south Wales, before a byelection on Thursday, Corbyn also refused to say what his party’s parliamentary tactics would be during a second round of indicative votes due to take place on Monday.
He said that the option of giving the public a confirmatory referendum on any Brexit deal “is the Labour position so far, but there hasn’t been enough support for that across the floor in the House of Commons”.
During this week’s indicative votes, the option for a public vote was whipped by Labour but was defeated by 295 to 268 votes, with 27 of the party’s MPs rebelling.
Corbyn said: “The absolute priority at the moment is to end this chaos the government has brought us to by their endlessly running down the clock and basically bullying and threatening people. The bullying hasn’t worked, the threats haven’t worked. It’s time now for the sensible people to take over.”
He cautioned: “This is a very dangerous period, because if we crash out without a deal then the supply chains get interrupted, jobs are at stake, and also the sense of security of many EU nationals living in Britain, and of course British people living across Europe.”
Labour would propose a deal involving a customs union with the EU to prevent the return of a hard border in Northern Ireland, Corbyn said.
“We are working very hard on that and reaching out to people all across the Commons, and I have been doing that all this week and obviously I’ll be doing that all this weekend,” he added.
“However people voted in the referendum, no one voted to lose their jobs, no one voted to be worse off, and no one voted to deregulate our society.
“I think the obvious choice is the one I suggested, which would be a good economic relationship with Europe that could be negotiated. I’m convinced of that after spending a lot of time meeting with and talking to officials in Europe.”
Thursday’s byelection, in the Newport West constituency, follows the death of the Labour MP Paul Flynn in February.
