Two in 10 Labour voters believe Theresa May should offer a second referendum, says poll

Around two in ten Labour voters believe Theresa May should offer a second referendum while a further 26 per cent believe the Government should abandon Brexit completely, according to a new poll.

The YouGov survey for the pro-EU pressure groups Best for Britain – asking respondents which statement best reflected their view on Brexit – found that 23 per cent of those who voted Labour at the 2017 snap general election said the Government should offer a second EU vote.

The results also found that 26 per cent agreed most with the statement “the government should abandon Brexit completely” and remain a member of the bloc, while 12 per cent said ministers should seek a “softer” deal with the EU and a further 26 per cent believed the government “should keep going with its current Brexit plan”.

The findings come as Jeremy Corbyn prepares to meet his Brexit sub-comittee on Monday to discuss the party’s policy and its position on the next phase of the negotiations. Labour has consistently said it will respect the vote of the referendum and repeatedly said it is not party policy to seek a second vote on EU membership.

Overall the survey found that 43 per cent of respondents believed Ms May should carry on with her current plans while eight per cent preferred a “softer” Brexit, 17 per cent opted for a second referendum, 16 per cent to abandon plan and a further 16 per cent replied “don’t know.

Responding to the findings, Lord Adonis, the Labour peer, said: “Time is running out for triangulation and fence-sitting on Brexit. As this polling shows, increasingly voters understand that we will either leave the EU – with the damage that will do – or we stay in the EU thanks, probably, to a new referendum.

“A vanishingly small number of people still believe that a so-called ‘soft Brexit’ is possible or desirable. Jeremy Corbyn prides himself on being a signpost and not a weathervane. Time to stop blowing in the wind, time to point the way to the people’s final say on our country’s future.”

Best for Britain’s CEO Eloise Todd said: “When the shadow Brexit team meet they should remember that soft Brexit would hurt millions of Labour voters, it would leave us with no power in Europe and people don’t want it.

The real choice is between the government’s deal and a future deal building on our EU membership: Labour need to do what their voters, and increasingly, the country, want and keep the door open to all options including staying in the EU.”

The survey also comes after Neil Kinnock, the former Labour leader, warned in an interview with the Observer that Brexit should be stopped in order to save Britain’s national health service.

“Brexit has already diminished, and will continue to depress, the revenues on which the NHS depend,” he said.

Mr Kinnock, who led the party between 1983 and 1992, continued: “The truth is that we can either take the increasingly plain risks and costs of leaving the EU, or have the stability, growth and revenues vital for crucial public services like the NHS and social care.”

“Recognising that, we should stop Brexit to save the NHS – or, at the very least, mitigate the damage by seeking European Economic Area membership.”