Labour MEPs launch bid to BAN pro-Brexit candidates

Labour MEPs launch bid to BAN pro-Brexit candidates from standing for the party in upcoming Euro elections

  • Labour’s 20 MEPs, who are all Remainers, have urged Jeremy Corbyn to force all candidates to promise to back calls for a second referendum
  • But move opposed by some members of Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, who fear it will drive Brexiteer Labour voters towards Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party
  • The row was revealed after Richard Corbett, Labour’s leader in the European parliament, said Mr Corbyn must back a second referendum

A Labour move to ban pro-Brexit candidates standing for the party in the European elections was revealed last night.

Labour’s 20 MEPs, who are all Remainers, have urged Jeremy Corbyn to force all candidates to promise to back calls for a second referendum, party sources claimed.

But the move is fiercely opposed by some members of Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, who fear it will drive Brexiteer Labour voters towards Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party or far-Right groups in the May 23 elections.

The row was revealed after Richard Corbett, Labour’s leader in the European parliament, said Mr Corbyn must back a second referendum – or ‘confirmatory vote’ – in its Euro elections manifesto.

Labour’s 20 MEPs, who are all Remainers, have urged Jeremy Corbyn to force all candidates to promise to back calls for a second referendum, party sources claimed

Mr Corbett said: ‘If Labour does not reconfirm its support for a confirmatory public vote on any Brexit deal in its manifesto it will haemorrhage votes. 

If we offer a confirmatory ballot we could do very well.’ 

A leaked Labour document shows its applicants will not even be interviewed face to face. 

Instead, to save time, they will be picked this week after a brief chat on the phone with a party official. 

All main parties are choosing candidates for the Euro elections in which 73 MEPs will be chosen. 

The bid to block candidates who refuse to back a new referendum threatens to open a new front in the Labour civil war.

A Labour source said: ‘Our MEPs are all pro-Brussels and do not want to fight alongside anti-Brussels Labour candidates because they say it will show the leadership is facing both ways. It will make writing the manifesto impossible.’

A total of 17 Labour MEPs have publicly supported the People’s Vote – even though most represent Leave-supporting constituencies.

 

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