DELEGATES AT THE conference of the UK Labour Party have voted to support “all options remaining on the table” on Brexit, including campaigning for a second vote if Theresa May’s government is unable to get a final deal through parliament.
Brexit loomed large over the four-day party event, causing ructions that the leader Jeremy Corbyn will be keen to avoid ahead of his speech today.
Corbyn’s speech is reported to attack “greed-is-good, deregulated financial capitalism” and will make a pitch for his party’s return to government.
But ahead of today, Shadow finance minister John McDonnell, a key Corbyn ally, and Brexit secretary Keir Starmer both publicly pressured Corbyn on whether or not to rule out another referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
Corbyn had said he would respect the decision of members at the conference.
McDonnell went off message on Monday, saying the option of staying in the European Union should not be on any ballot paper.
The pro-EU Starmer hit back, receiving rapturous applause from members when he also veered off script to insist that remaining in the bloc was still on the table.
Corbyn kept his options open on yesterday, telling the BBC: “We haven’t said there’s going to be anything yet.
What we’ve said (is that) all options must be considered if and when this government collapses or its negotiations collapse.
For now, the party can unify around attempts to bring down the government, the first step of which will be voting to reject any deal May strikes with the EU,.
Starmer said that if May struck a deal that did not match Labour’s expectations — something he said “seems increasingly likely” — then it would vote against the deal.
May would then need the support of almost all of her MPs to get it through parliament, an unlikely scenario given her own party’s divisions.
Labour has also vowed to block a no-deal Brexit, and suggested a general election should be called in such a scenario, although pro-EU David Lammy doubted it would happen.
“Most people here want a general election and want Jeremy Corbyn running the country, in the end that will be down to getting a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons, my own view is that’s not likely to happen,” he told AFP.
Corbyn is due to use his speech in Liverpool today to promise an expansion of free childcare for poor households, saying that “driving up standards of childcare will make that vital difference for millions of our children”.
He hopes it will appeal to voters who could be heading to the polls if May’s government collapses under the pressure of Brexit before Britain is set to leave the EU in March.
“I think Corbyn’s speech will be built around the theme of government-in-waiting, ‘this lot have failed on everything from Brexit to the NHS, they’ve let the country down, it’s time for a change’,” Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said ahead of the address.
© – AFP 2018 with reporting by Rónán Duffy
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