It took five and a half hours and six versions, Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer were both pleased with the new “composite” motion hammered out just before midnight at the party conference.
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Labor’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said in an interview on the sideline of the conference that the co-called Chequers blueprint which charts British Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans for a deal with Brussels will nearly certainly fail conditions laid down by Labor.
May’s Conservative Party is deeply divided over the direction talks with the European Union should take, with opponents of her plans, including her former Brexit minister, holding a press conference on Monday to spell out an alternative vision based on a free trade agreement.
Starmer said that if Prime Minister Theresa May struck a divorce agreement that did not match Labour’s expectations – something he said “seems increasingly likely” – then it would vote against the deal in parliament.
Mr Gardiner instead praised Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for striking a conciliatory tone with the European Union, and vowing to compromise over key issues in a bid to secure a viable Brexit deal.
ITV’s political editor Robert Peston said that “Mr Corbyn has set May up to choose between a negotiated Brexit and splitting her party”.
Starmer said Labour wanted a general election as a first recourse in a bid to break any Brexit deadlock in parliament.
And, as part of Labour’s “ambitious” energy plan, Corbyn stated that the party would work with industry “to change the way we build to train the workforce that will retrofit homes”.
Susan Pollack told an emotionally-charged fringe meeting organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) at the conference in Liverpool on Tuesday that Mr Corbyn should say “unfounded” attacks against Israel are “not acceptable”.
It has been suggested the Labour leader had planned only a low-key visit to the Belgian capital to attend this afternoon the naming of a square in honour of his murdered colleague Jo Cox.
Corbyn, himself previously a long-standing euro-sceptic, has been criticised by the pro-remain camp for not campaigning hard enough for Labour’s anti-Brexit stance.
His comments were significant because Labour has been as divided over the issue as May’s Conservative Party.
And he set out his support for the option of a referendum if no general election is called – a policy delegates at the conference will vote on later on Tuesday.
She also lambasted Labour’s intention to vote against her Brexit deal.
She added: “Whatever your business, investing in post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G20”, a reference to the Group of 20 major economies. “She had an assessment by someone who wasn’t medically trained, we have now been told that all her benefit will be stopped”.
But Richard Corbett, head of the Labour MPs in the European Parliament, noted that Cox was murdered “just a few days before we voted in that awful referendum”.
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Corbyn said: “When President Trump takes the USA out of the Paris accords, tries to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, moves the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and pursues aggressive nationalism and trade wars – he is turning his back on global cooperation and even worldwide law”.
