Labour looks likely to vote down Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal, Sir Keir Starmer has warned.
Sir Starmer, who is the shadow Brexit secretary as well as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, has said that Theresa May’s withdrawal plan would fail Labour’s six tests, representing a bad deal for the UK.
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “I think it is going to be a very bad deal. I don’t think it is going to meet our tests and we shouldn’t be voting for a deal which we don’t think is in the national interest.”
“We cannot carry on with this idea that the prime minister can bring back any deal she cobbles together and we must all vote for it, however bad it, because something even worse will happen if we don’t That’s not a ‘meaningful vote’.
“There has to be a point where Parliament says it is not good enough.” He added.
Starmer’s remarks come ahead of his speech at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool.
Earlier this week, the shadow chancellor John McDonnell said that he would back a second Brexit referendum if it did not include an option to remain.
“If we are going to respect the last referendum, it will be about the deal, it will a negotiation on the deal,” he said.
“Parliament will determine the nature of the question that will be put, but the first stage of that is to see if we can get a deal that is acceptable and brings the country together again. And I’ve always thought we could.”
Nevertheless, Sir Starmer contradicted this view, suggesting that a secondary vote could indeed include an option to remain.
The Labour party have been criticised by opponents for demonstrating a lack of clarity over their position with regards to Brexit.
However, it seems confusion over how best to proceed with Brexit does not seem to be exclusive to the Labour party.
The Conservatives continue to internally disagree over whether to support the Prime Minister’s controversial Chequers plan deal, which last week was rejected by the EU.