THE Shadow Foreign Secretary admitted that if there were a snap general election, her party would put the brakes on our exit - and could end up backing another referendum
LABOUR would rip up plans to quit the EU next March and push back Article 50, Emily Thornberry confirmed today.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary admitted that if there was a snap election that Labour won, her party would put the brakes on our EU exit.
They would immediately try to extend Article 50, which says we will officially quit the bloc next month, and negotiate their own deal with the EU.
She told BBC Radio 5 Live today: "We would need to put back Article 50 back, and then let the grown ups negotiate a proper divorce deal."
And she said said she was "quite confident" Labour would win the next election - whenever it gets called.
But on the idea of a second referendum she refused to confirm whether she would back one or not - after Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson said they would throw their weight behind whatever their members wanted them to do.
Tory Chairman Brandon Lewis said today that Labour would take Britain back to "square one" if they tried to overturn the result of the referendum.
He said: "The last pretence that Labour ever respected the democratic decision of the British people is rapidly disappearing.
“If Labour back a second referendum they will have broken their manifesto pledge and betrayed millions of people who voted in good faith to leave the EU."
Pro-EU activists were staging a rally and march in Liverpool as the annual conference got under way, in a bid to pile pressure on the leadership to back a so-called "People's Vote".
Mr Corbyn confirmed today that there will be a vote on the party's Brexit stance during the four-day conference - but it's unclear what exactly will be proposed.
More than 100 Brexit motions tabled by constituency parties will be boiled down to a single question through a process known as "compositing", and many expect it to result in a fudge allowing Mr Corbyn to retain broad room to manoeuvre.
Asked whether he would whether he would feel obliged to respect a vote by delegates demanding a second referendum, Mr Corbyn told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "Let's see what comes out of conference. Obviously I'm bound by the democracy of our party.
"There will be a clear vote in the conference. I don't know what's going to come out of all the compositing meetings that are going on."
A recent poll found 86% of Labour members think voters should have the final say on the outcome of Brexit negotiations, and 90% would now vote to remain in the EU.
But union leader Len McCluskey said it would be wrong for Labour to start campaigning for a second referendum as it would look like they were trying to overturn the result altogether.
He BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics that any second vote should not include an option to stay in the EU.
"We have already had a people's vote - they voted to come out of the EU," said the Unite leader.
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