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Labour row erupts in top level meeting with Corbyn over backing second Brexit referendum
Labour’s shadow cabinet witnessed a top-level bust-up as senior frontbenchers pressed Jeremy Corbyn to give clearer support to a second Brexit referendum.Shadow chancellor John McDonnell warned that the current stance looked “indecisive” and risked the party being seen as “triangulating” between Leave and Remain. He told the meeting: “We need to make our position clear.”Deputy leader Tom Watson, who has been pushing Mr Corbyn to give full-throated backing for a Final Say vote, said the party now needed to move “swiftly, decisively and with humility”.It may be “too late” to stop a no-deal Brexit if Labour delays a change in its stance to its annual conference in September as Mr Corbyn has suggested, he said.And Barry Gardiner, who has previously argued strongly in favour of a Brexit deal, said that he now backed a "remain-and-reform" position. In an apparent criticism of Mr Corbyn, he said that recent election results were down to "failure of leadership". Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Labour should be "true to our internationalist values and campaign for remain-and-reform".In a statement to shadow cabinet, Mr Corbyn made no move away from his existing position, saying he had stuck “faithfully” to the policy agreed last year, which prioritises a general election over a second referendum. He said he wanted to consult further with MPs and trade unionsIn a repeat of his statement after last month’s disastrous European elections, he said it was "now right to demand that any deal is put to a public vote", which could be a general election or second referendum. And he said that any referendum ballot paper should contain "real choices for both Leave and Remain voters".Leave campaigners were hopeful that the Labour leader may be inching towards setting out a more explicit pro-referendum stance in an imminent speech, after he said he would "set out our views to the public" after consulting more widely. Ahead of the meeting, Mr Corbyn received a letter from 26 Labour MPs mostly from Leave-backing constituencies who urged him to back a deal which would take the UK out of the EU by 31 October and warned that a shift to a pro-Remain stance would be "toxic to bedrock Labour voters"The open letter, signed by frontbencher Gloria de Piero and MPs including Stephen Kinnock, Caroline Flint and Lisa Nandy, said that the near-defeat by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the Peterborough by-election was a “stark warning” of the potential risk to the party.“The strength of the Brexit Party in Labour heartland areas in the European elections revealed a much more potent threat than either the Liberals or Greens present,” they said. A briefing note believed to have been drawn up by the leader's office warned the shadow cabinet: “There is an evident risk that shifting to a more explicitly pro-Remain position would leave us vulnerable in seats we need to hold or win without enough potential seat gains in winnable Remain majority areas.”However the People's Vote campaign released its own analysis of recent polling by YouGov which suggested that 51 per cent of Labour's 2017 voters deserted it for a pro-Remain party in the European elections, while just 14 per cent voted for the Brexit Party or Ukip.Former YouGov president Peter Kellner said that failure to appeal more decisively to lost Remain voters would "condemn Labour to its fourth consecutive general election defeat".> As per politicslive part of briefing to shadow cabinet on another referendum this afternoon 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/bgvRFlC7bz> > — Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) > > June 19, 2019Speaking after the meeting, frontbench MP Rachael Maskell, a supporter of the Love Socialism Hate Brexit campaign, said the party urgently needs to present an "energetic and enthusiastic" pro-Remain message.“Only a radical Labour message can keep us in Europe, and only by opposing Brexit can we be true to our values and set out a radical vision to transform the country," she said. "Our position must be crystal clear before Boris Johnson walks into Number 10.”And Momentum activist Alena Ivanova, of the pro-Remain Another Europe is Possible movement, said: “Labour is a mass movement, and many of the activists recruited to the party by the hope and radicalism of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership are watching on in disbelief as, once again, we are treated to more fudge and consultation, and no clear movement towards Remain. We need to move our position before the summer break ."There was speculation that Mr Corbyn may be preparing to give figures like chairman Ian Lavery free rein to continue advocating Brexit following any policy shift, after he told shadow cabinet that he had been reading a biography of former leader Harold Wilson, who allowed his ministers to campaign on opposite sides in the 1975 EU referendum.Change UK MP Chris Leslie, who quit Labour in February over Brexit, said: "Labour's reluctance to argue for remaining in the EU is a historic betrayal and Jeremy Corbyn has now run down the clock with his continued contortions. "Revoking Article 50 is now the only practical route that allows the British people the time and space to have a genuine final say."This further round of consultations is nothing more than Jeremy Corbyn playing Labour members for fools."
Senior Labour figures are mounting a fightback against pressure for change in the party’s Brexit position, as the deeply-divided shadow cabinet meets amid calls for it to adopt full-throated support for a second referendum.
A leaked briefing paper understood to have been presented to the meeting warns of an “evident risk” that shifting to a more explicitly pro-Remain position would cost the party seats in the Midlands and North of England.
And a tweet from the account of chairman Ian Lavery – which he later said had not been authorized by him or his staff – appeared to suggest that the ultimate aim of those pressing for change was to block Brexit by revoking the UK’s Article 50 process.
A letter to leader Jeremy Corbyn from 26 MPs in mainly Leave-backing constituencies warned that a commitment to a second referendum would be “toxic to our bedrock Labour voters”.
The letter, signed by frontbencher Gloria de Piero and MPs including Stephen Kinnock, Caroline Flint and Lisa Nandy, said that the near-defeat by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the Peterborough by-election was a “stark warning” of the potential risk to the party in Leave-majority seats.
“The strength of the Brexit Party in Labour heartland areas in the European elections revealed a much more potent threat than either the Liberals or Greens present,” they said.
Labour sources played down expectations of a fundamental shift in policy as a result of today’s meeting, which was called as part of a consultation process ordered by Mr Corbyn following its disastrous performance in May’s European elections.
Mr Corbyn said then that Labour was “ready to support a public vote on any deal”, either in the form of a general election or a Final Say referendum.
But deputy leader Tom Watson has been urging him to go further and commit the party to campaign actively for a referendum and to support Remain if one is called.
Mr Watson wants an emergency vote or special conference to authorize a change in policy before the summer, warning that it will be “too late” to stop a no-deal Brexit on 31 October if Labour waits until its annual conference in Brighton in September.
While the autumn conference is Labour’s official policy-making body, a party source confirmed that it is possible to set out a new position “at any time”.
Senior shadow cabinet figures including Mr Lavery and Jon Trickett have successfully pressed Mr Corbyn to resist calls for out-and-out support for a referendum and Remain, warning that it would risk a collapse in support among Leave-voters who make up more than half of the electorate in a majority of Labour-held seats.
But Mr Watson, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer have pushed for stronger backing for a referendum, pointing to the scale of support for Remain among Labour members and voters. After Ms Thornberry was pulled from an expected appearance in the Commons Theresa May joked at prime minister’s questions today that she had been hauled off for “re-education”.
The leaked document for today’s meeting states that “it is not obvious, from the evidence of local elections and Peterborough (by-election) that a more pro-Remain position from Labour would in itself win back voters currently lost to Liberal Democrats – or in a numerical enough way that would offset Leave voters in many of the key marginals”.
And it adds: “It remains the case that there are more target and defensive seats in the Midlands and North of England which voted Leave.
“The recent elections don’t suggest any change to this basic arithmetic, given the geographical distribution of Leave and Remain voters.
“There is an evident risk that shifting to a more explicitly pro-Remain position would leave us vulnerable in seats we need to hold or win without enough potential seat gains in winnable Remain majority areas.”
A tweet sent from Mr Lavery’s account earlier today stated: “Please understand there (sic) position really is to head for to (sic) revoking A50.”
But he later sent a message on the social media site to say that the swiftly-deleted post was “not authorized by myself or anyone on my team”. And he later revealed that he had received an email from Twitter around an hour after the original post, alerting him to the fact that his account had been accessed from an unknown smartphone.