Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn will today say we have reached “the defining moment” in the EU referendum, and that Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are “in charge of the Brexit train, taking us down a track that can only lead to disaster”.
In a speech for the Labour In For Britain campaign at Church House in central London later today, he will accuse the Leave campaign of misleading the public with their pledge to “take back control”, and say that their understanding of Britain’s place in the world “belongs in the Victorian era and not the 21st century”.
The Remain campaign will hope that Mr Benn’s intervention will resonate with undecided Labour voters, who with 10 days to go until the referendum are the most likely to make the difference between victory and defeat.
“We have now reached the defining moment in this referendum,” he is expected to say today. “The Brexit train is threatening to pull away from the station with Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in charge, taking us down a track that can only lead to disaster. It would make us poorer and less powerful, and it would hurt the next generation as they try to prosper in tomorrow’s world. That's why it is so important that we make the patriotic case for remaining in the EU and keeping Britain great.”
“The Leave side say, ‘We can stand alone’ and ‘Britain can be great again’,” he will say. “Well, I say Britain never stopped being great and can be greater still in future. It is the Leave campaign who are doing down our country, even though we lead in the UN, Nato and the Commonwealth as well as in the EU. They seem to think that we are not capable of continuing to exert our influence in Europe.”
Mr Benn’s closing speech in the Commons debate over British air strikes against Isis in Syria was regarded as one of the great parliamentary speeches of recent years, although it set him at odds with his party leader and set in motion a shadow cabinet reshuffle that lasted several days.
His late father Tony Benn, arguably the leading light on the radical left of the party, argued passionately for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Economic Community at the referendum in 1975, though his son has always been more centrist in outlook.
Labour has been widely criticised for its lacklustre Remain campaign. Jeremy Corbyn has made two speeches in support of the European Union, but has consistently criticised and voted against the EU in his three decades as an MP.
At the last election and before, Labour lost millions of votes to Ukip, and some of its radical figures such as former employment minister Frank Field, a Leave advocate, has said the party must stand up for working people whose wages are being undercut by cheap migrant labour.
““How can we best advance the British national interest today and in the future?” Mr Benn will say. “By our participation in, and leadership of, those very organisations that we helped to create which gave and give us influence.”
