Pro-Corbyn group to launch drive for public vote on Brexit deal

A pro-Corbyn group is to launch its own drive for a “people’s vote” on a final Brexit deal, with the aim of persuading leftwing Labour members concerned about backing a cross-party campaign.

The grassroots Labour for a People’s Vote group, which is led by several former Momentum figures, as well as trade union leaders, has the backing of more than 60 constituency Labour parties (CLPs) to try to force a vote at this year’s party conference to change Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit policy.

The group will call for Labour to oppose the government’s final Brexit deal, which the party has said it would do if the deal with the EU did not meet six tests set by the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer. The group will then campaign for the party to go further and campaign for a public vote on the deal with an option to stay in the EU should voters reject the deal.

Activists from 62 local Labour parties have pledged to raise the issue in a motion at the party’s conference this September, which the group said was a major shift among the Labour grassroots members, the majority of whom are Corbyn supporters.

More than 100,000 people joined the people’s vote march through central London on Saturday, fronted by Labour’s Chuka Umunna, the Conservatives’ Anna Soubry, the Greens’ Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable.

Corbyn did not attend the march and Labour’s position on Brexit was subject tocritical chants from the crowd, who sang: “Where’s Jeremy Corbyn?”

Labour activists involved in the parallel drive for a people’s vote on the final deal believe in the need for leftwingers to have their own campaign, which does not disparage Corbyn.

“It is essential that there is clear red water between the mainstream centrist remain campaigns and any serious attempt to get Labour to strengthen its Brexit position,” a source close to the campaign said.

“Labour members are overwhelmingly on the left, and will never be won over by centrist MPs or a cross-party alliance that includes Tories. Ultimately they have different aims. This is about making sure that a Corbyn government can succeed.”

The group’s launch statement has been signed by the general secretary of the TSSA union, Manuel Cortes, the economist Ann Pettifor, the former Momentum steering group member Michael Chessum and the former CWU general secretary Billy Hayes.

The statement says a Norway-style deal in which the UK becomes a member of the European Economic Area is “untenable” and instead argues for a full reversal, saying the effects of Brexit would make much worse the prospects that would face a socialist Labour government.

“We are therefore coming together to urge the movement of which we are a part to oppose the Tories’ destructive Brexit and unite the country behind a radical and hopeful vision for the future,” it says.

Paul Hilder, a Momentum member who ran to be Labour’s general secretary this year, said: “The overwhelming majority of Labour members are both supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and opponents of Tory Brexit, but until now, we have been shut out of the debate. This is too important to be left to a handful of anti-Corbyn centrists whose motives are in question and who cannot even win a vote in Westminster.”

Pettifor, an advisor to the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said: “Only an alliance of a left-led Labour party with socialists and progressive partners across the continent can challenge the dominant Anglo-American economic model of globalisation that is causing such harm in Britain and across the world.”

Cortes said the Conservatives were offering “a kamikaze Brexit”, adding that there was “nothing in Brexit for working people”.

The CLPs that have submitted the motion for debate at conference include Corbyn’s Islington North CLP. Local member Valerie Bossman-Quarshie, who submitted the motion, said she had rejoined the party because of Corbyn, but urged him to back a second referendum.

“As long as the Tories are in government this is the only way to stop their Brexit deal doing more harm to ordinary people’s lives,” she said.

Momentum has thus far given its full backing to Corbyn’s Brexit policy but may be forced to hold its own vote on its position after a petition organised by an activist, Alena Ivanova.

The petition has so far half the 4,000 signatures needed to trigger a poll of members on “whether to oppose Tory Brexit, and whether to campaign for Labour to hold a vote at its annual conference in September on giving the people the final say on the Brexit deal”.