Jeremy Corbyn was today warned he will “get splinters in places he doesn’t want” if he sits on the fence over a second Brexit referendum.
Senior Labour MP David Lammy piled pressure on his party leader to back giving the public a fresh say on quitting the EU if Theresa May survives a vote of no confidence today despite the Brexit turmoil.
But Labour is deeply divided over another referendum, with shadow cabinet ministers insisting that more votes of confidence could be called over the Government’s handling of Brexit, rather than moving to a so-called “People’s Vote”.
Speculation was rife at Westminster that shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott are more in favour of another public vote than Mr Corbyn.
Streatham MP Chuka Umunna, a campaigner for a “People’s Vote”, rejected this argument. “With just 37 sitting days until exit day, there is absolutely no time to waste. If the no confidence motion today fails, we must move to the next stage of the @UKLabour conference motion and immediately back a #PeoplesVote as the way to stop no deal and resolve this,” he tweeted.
Mr Corbyn left his home in Islington at 8.30am, refusing to answer questions on whether the vote of no confidence is a distraction or if he will win it. Labour MP Chris Leslie warned Mr Corbyn not to make a “monumental mistake” by refusing to back a “People’s Vote” after putting it on the table at the party’s annual rally last year. “He would risk following the path of Nick Clegg nearly a decade ago,” he wrote in the Standard. “A broken promise on a People’s Vote could devastate Labour’s fortunes in the same way it did for Clegg after that tuition fees betrayal.”
Lib-Dem leader Sir Vince Cable, Tory ex-defence minister Guto Bebb, Mr Lammy and Green MP Caroline Lucas called in a letter to the Standard for a second referendum rather than a fresh attempt by MPs to strike a deal in “another episode of fantasy Brexit.”
