{"id":33293,"date":"2019-02-26T13:31:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T13:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33293"},"modified":"2019-02-26T13:31:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T13:31:10","slug":"now-labour-backs-a-second-brexit-referendum-will-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33293","title":{"rendered":"Now Labour backs a second Brexit referendum, will it happen?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

London, United Kingdom –<\/strong> Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn<\/a> said on Monday the Labour Party<\/a> is ready to back calls for a second Brexit referendum<\/a> to “prevent a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country”.<\/span><\/p>\n

This marks a shift in Labour’s Brexit<\/a> stance, which has been ambiguous in its support for a second referendum for fear of alienating the minority of Labour constituencies that voted to leave, particularly in the north of England.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The move was welcomed by some MPs who want Britain<\/a> to remain in the European Union<\/a>. It will also be seen as good news by Labour supporters who have been campaigning for a “people’s vote” while growing disillusioned with what they see as the party’s feeble handling of Brexit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.<\/span><\/p>\n

What did Corbyn say?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The Labour leader said the party would “put forward or back” an amendment supporting a people’s vote should parliament fail to pass Labour’s alternative plan, which will be put to a vote in the House of Commons this week. <\/em>The plan is likely to be defeated.<\/p>\n

Why the shift?<\/h2>\n

Corbyn is trying to hold his party together.<\/p>\n

Nine Labour MPs have defected over the party’s Brexit policy as well as alleged anti-Semitism. Eight joined a newly-formed Independent Group comprising both Labour and Conservative MPs. The group, which is opposed to leaving the EU without a deal and backs a second referendum, met for the first time on Monday.<\/p>\n

Corbyn’s move came as Prime Minister Theresa May<\/a> announced yet another deferral on a “meaningful vote” on her Brexit deal. It was due for this week and is now scheduled to take place by March 12 – just two weeks before the UK is due to leave the EU.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To stem a rebellion within her party, May is also likely to promise MPs who are eager to rule out a no deal that they will have the chance to vote for a two-month extension of Article 50 in a fortnight, should she fail to reach a deal by then.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the EU, which has been firm in its refusal to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, signalled it is also eager to avoid a no deal, with European Council President Donald Tusk saying on Monday that “an extension would be a rational solution” in light of the current situation.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Ben Bradshaw warned last week that the trickle of defecting MPs could “become a flood” if Corbyn failed to deliver on the party’s conference policy for a second Brexit referendum.<\/p>\n

What was Labour’s Brexit stance before?<\/span><\/h2>\n

At the party’s annual conference last autumn, Labour agreed to campaign for a people’s vote should it fail to secure a general election.<\/p>\n

But Corbyn lost his bid to remove May from power after the prime minister won a no-confidence vote, just a day after a resounding defeat on her Brexit deal in January.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the prime minister headed back to Brussels with a parliamentary mandate to renegotiate the agreement, Corbyn put forward Labour’s five demands for Brexit.<\/p>\n

These would keep the UK more closely bound to the EU than May’s deal. They include a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union, close alignment with the single market and on rights and protections, participation in EU agencies and funding programmes, and more guarantees on security arrangements.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Labour leader will put his Brexit plan to parliament this week by tabling an amendment to the PM’s Brexit motion. The party also said it would support a proposal to delay Brexit if the prime minister can’t get her deal approved by March 13.<\/span><\/p>\n

The round of voting on March 12 is also when a possible referendum amendment is expected to be put forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWill there be a second referendum, and what would Britons be voting on?<\/span>\u00a0<\/h2>\n

In a briefing to its MPs on Monday, Labour said the options for a new referendum should allow voters to choose between a credible leave deal or remain. <\/span><\/p>\n

The party would not support no deal as an option. However, these would ultimately have to be decided by parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even if Labour backs a second referendum, it is not clear that there is a parliament majority. There are more Labour MPs opposed to it, compared with Conservatives who support it. The Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Liberal Democrats would support a second vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Any plan for another referendum would require an official request to the EU to extend negotiations to make time for it to be organised – something the EU is likely to grant.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the shift could also push the hard Brexiteer, eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party towards voting for May’s deal, fearing that a long delay and the prospect of a new vote could mean reversing the result of the 2016 referendum.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, it doesn’t mean that a referendum is actually going to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Both politically and procedurally, the conditions that apply make it unlikely that [a second referendum] is going to go through the House of Commons,”<\/span>\u00a0John Curtice, a politics professor at Strathclyde University and Senior Research Fellow at NatCen Social Research, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

“If you have to get this through the House you have to make it more attractive to leave voters, and Labour have done the opposite,” Curtice added.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, United Kingdom – Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Monday the Labour Party is ready to back calls for a second Brexit referendum to “prevent a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country”. This marks a shift in Labour’s Brexit stance, which has been ambiguous in its support for a second referendum for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}