LABOUR DOES NOT SUPPORT A SECOND EU REFERENDUM : DIANE ABBOTT
DIANE ABBOTT |
Shadow home secretary says electorate will get a say on final deal
through their MPs when parliament votes
Diane Abbott has insisted Labour rejects the idea of a second referendum
on Brexit, saying the electorate will get a say through their MPs when
parliament votes on the final deal.
The shadow home secretary was challenged on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show
after the Guardian published a letter she had written to constituents in her
Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat, saying: “I will argue for the right of
the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed.”
Confronted with the wording of the letter, she said: “It’s about the
electorate, and we have a parliamentary system, and we did agree, last week,
against the wishes of the government, that parliament will have a final vote on
the deal, and I think that’s very important, and it will allow MPs to reflect
the views of the electorate.”
She added: “The Labour party does not support a second referendum, and
we’ve never supported it, and we don’t support it now.”
However, Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, said in a separate interview
that Labour backing for a referendum could not be completely ruled out.
Appearing on Pienaar’s Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: “We’ve not
said we want a second referendum. What we actually want is a negotiated
settlement. The point about the vote this week was we don’t want power to be
taken away from unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, as the debate went in the
referendum, to be given to the executive or unelected bureaucrats in Whitehall.
We want parliament to have a say on it.”
When pushed on whether Labour would rule out a second referendum, Watson
said: “When you’re in complex negotiations on behalf of the nation, you
shouldn’t rule anything out. What I am trying to say to you [is] I don’t think
it is likely at all. It would be more likely that we try and renegotiate the
deal should parliament reject it.”
Theresa May was defeated in the House of Commons on Wednesday when 11 of
her MPs supported an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill aimed at ensuring that
the “meaningful” vote on the Brexit deal repeatedly promised by the government
must happen before Britain leaves.
Another looming parliamentary showdown appears to have been averted after
rebel MPs backed a compromise amendment on the government’s demand that the
date of Brexit be enshrined in the bill.
A referendum on the final deal is one of the key demands of the Liberal
Democrat leader, Vince Cable, as part of what he calls “exit from Brexit”,
though the Lib Dems failed to make as much progress as they had hoped in June’s
general election with stopping Brexit as their flagship policy.
Offering voters the chance to ratify the Brexit deal in a referendum was
one of the clearest dividing lines in last year’s Labour leadership contest in
which Jeremy Corbyn defeated the challenger Owen Smith.
Smith is now on Labour’s frontbench as shadow Northern Ireland secretary.
Asked about a claim last week by Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit
secretary, that Labour would accept “easy movement” of EU citizens into the UK after
Brexit, Abbott said the party was keen to reduce the bureaucracy of the system.
“When we leave the single market, freedom of movement will fall. What we
will put in its place is fair rules and a reasonable management of migration. A
part of that will be moving away from the bureaucracy that bedevils the current
system.”
She said the question of whether EU citizens would require a visa to
travel into the UK in future would depend on the outcome of the government’s
negotiations with the EU27.
No comments