Labour leader Corbyn calls for general election and tells business to reject May's 'blindfold Brexit'
UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Monday urged business leaders to reject the government’s “botched, worst-of-all-worlds deal” on Brexit and called for a general election.
Corbyn, leader of the opposition and long-term critic of the EU, closed the annual Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in London on Monday. The CBI represents 190,000 British businesses, who employ a combined 7 million staff.
Corbyn told the 1,500-strong audience that UK prime minister Theresa May’s draft Brexit deal, which was announced last week, is a “blindfold Brexit” and will “leave the country in an indefinite halfway house without a real say over our future.”
Labour will vote down the deal in Parliament, Corbyn said, and he argued that a general election is now the “only sensible course of action.”
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Corbyn set out plans for how Labour would fight any election and said he has “an alternative plan for a sensible jobs-first deal that could win support in parliament and help bring our country together.”
“All options must remain on the table, including a second vote of some sort,” Corbyn said.
“We want a new comprehensive and permanent customs union, with a British say in future trade deals. That would ensure no hard border in Northern Ireland and avoid the need for the government’s half-baked backstop deal.”
He called for “a strong single market relationship” and a “guarantee that our country doesn’t fall behind the EU in workers’ rights, or protections for consumers and the environment.
“We won’t let this Conservative government use Brexit as an excuse for a race to the bottom in protections, and rip up our rights at work or expose our children to chlorinated chicken by running down our product standards,” Corbyn said.
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Questioned on how Labour would negotiate such a deal given there are only 130 days to go until Brexit, Corbyn said: “When the EU says there isn’t time, the EU has a long history of 11th hour negotiations. Even the Lisbon treaty was re-negotiated several times.”
He added that he would not use “threats” against the EU in negotiates and accused the Conservative Party of doing so.
The Labour leader argued that Brexit “should be the catalyst to invest in our regions and infrastructure, bringing good jobs and real control to local communities and people.”
He pledged to invest more in business and society through initiatives such as a national investment bank and a national transformation fund.
“When societies are bought together, they’re much much stronger,” Corbyn said. “They’re weakened by division, weakened by poverty and lack of investment.”
Earlier on Monday, prime minister Theresa May spoke at the CBI conference and called for businesses to back her draft Brexit plan. She said the deal “unashamedly puts our economic success and the prosperity of families up and down the country first.”
May announced she had agreed a draft withdrawal deal with the EU last week. The deal has since been attacked on both the left and right, and May’s position as prime minister looks increasingly perilous as her own party has rebelled.
