Brexit: Jeremy Corbyn backs call for second referendum

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has for the first time backed calls for a second referendum on Brexit in a potential gamechanger.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has for the first time backed calls for a second referendum on Brexit, amid rising concerns the UK will crash out of the European Union next month without a deal.

Mr Corbyn’s support comes as the EU warned Britain faced the prospect of either a chaotic exit from the bloc or delaying its planned departure date. European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs the summit meetings of EU nation leaders, said it would be “rational” for the March 29 Brexit date to be extended.

Mr Tusk warned that the chances of a withdrawal agreement being concluded in time are receding, and that sticking by the planned Brexit date would be too risky.

“I believe that in the situation we are in, an extension would be a rational solution,” Mr Tusk told reporters at an EU-Arab League summit in Egypt after talks with Theresa May.

Parliament is due to debate and vote on Wednesday on the next steps in Britain’s tortuous departure from the EU, and MPs are expected to put down a series of amendments, including at least one that would demand that the exit deal is put to a public vote.

“We are committed to also putting forward or supporting an amendment in favour of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory (Conservative) Brexit being forced on the country,” Mr Corbyn will tell a meeting of his Labour MPs today, according to extracts provided by his office.

Although Labour’s move is potentially a game-changer, the path to another referendum is far from clear. Another Brexit vote would require the support of Tory MPs, for example.

The Labour party will also support a critical bid by MP Yvette Cooper to give parliament the legal power to force Mrs May to seek an extension to Article 50, the mechanism by which Britain will leave the EU.

Ms Cooper said it was irresponsible of the government that just a few weeks before Brexit “we still don’t know what kind of Brexit we are going to have and we’re not even going to have a vote on it until two weeks before that final deadline.”

“I don’t see how businesses can plan, I don’t see how public services can plan and I think it’s just deeply damaging,” Ms Cooper told the BBC.

Mr Corbyn has been under pressure for some time to support a second referendum. Last week, eight referendum-supporting MPs quit his party, in part owing to frustration over his failure to back another vote.

The prospect of holding a second vote poses a dilemma for Mr Corbyn; while many of the party’s members and supporters fervently back a so-called People’s Vote, others simply want Britain to leave the EU as soon as possible. Labour said it would also put forward an amendment calling on the government to adopt its Brexit proposals, including a permanent customs union with the EU and close alignment with the bloc’s single market.

Reuters