Our Labour Party can unite behind a Final Say referendum that challenges this knuckleheaded Tory Brexit

Nine Labour MPs call for the party to unite around Jeremy Corbyn’s commitment to a new vote on the Brexit deal

Jeremy Corbyn deserves praise for backing a public vote to break the Brexit deadlock. It’s the only way forward for Labour now that the Tories have comprehensively run our country’s chances of an alternative Brexit into the ground.

Brexit is a mess. It is more difficult and more expensive than we were promised in 2016 and it is harder than the cheerleaders for Brexit said it would be in the referendum. Parliament can’t come to a decision and we face crashing out in just 23 days.

The country is clearly suffering. British manufacturing is struggling with the uncertainty and growing risk. Our world-class car industry is in the midst of a Brexit-fuelled crisis which has seen big names like Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Honda announce job losses across the country. Meanwhile, EU nationals, the backbone of our NHS and other public services, have been leaving in their droves – with the latest ONS figures showing a fall of 61,000.

The Labour Party had proposed an alternative to Theresa May’s shambolic Brexit plan, pushing for a closer relationship with our European neighbours, including access to their markets and keeping up with Europe on workers’ rights and environmental protections. However, with the Commons rejecting this alternative Brexit last Wednesday we are left without a deal MPs will vote for and the risk of leaving with no deal. Neither option is any good.

After nearly three wasted years the government is still more interested in keeping the Tory party together than putting the interests of the country first. At a time of genuine national crisis the country should come first and that means finding a way to break the Brexit deadlock in parliament.

Leaving the EU without a deal on 29 March would be a historic error, with those most vulnerable in society bearing the brunt of such a decision. Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer deserve praise for their persistence in trying to convince the PM to improve her deal but it is clear she won’t listen to anyone. Faced with this ongoing threat, the Labour Party had to act: on Monday Jeremy Corbyn promised to put forward or support an amendment in favour of a public vote.

The party can now unite behind the kind of compromise being worked up by Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson that draws lessons from the public ratification of the Good Friday Agreement. Jeremy’s decision to back a public vote is crucial because it now really is the only way to avoid a damaging no deal and break the deadlock.

It will give people all over the UK the final say and the chance to use their voice on one of the biggest constitutional decisions our country has ever made and ensure Brexit won’t forever be debated in parliament. Bringing people back into this decision will mean that if the public vote for Theresa May’s deal it would be considered ratified, and if they reject Theresa May’s deal to leave than we shall stay in the EU.

Many lies were told to win the referendum. We were also poorly served by a Remain campaign run by establishment politicos who couldn’t connect with the people around the country they had to convince. The difficult truth is that there are no easy ways out and no simple answers. There are no options that avoid division, no options that satisfy all and no options that will on their own unite our communities – but a better campaign that takes people through the realities of Brexit and of EU membership can start to heal the divide if Labour is at the heart of the campaign.

Tory Brexit and Tory Britain are in a right mess and we need to focus on ways out of the mess. Brexit is masking so many other important issues like low wages, the crisis in our NHS and our schools, rising crime and the crisis in social care.

We need a way out of the deadlock in the Commons and that is why more and more people are coming round to settling this issue by giving the people of our country the final say via a Final Say. Labour is the party that can unite the country against this damaging Brexit, and uniting behind Jeremy to deliver that vote is what we must now do.

​Ged Killen MP
Clive Lewis MP
Rachael Maskell MP
Anna McMorrin MP
Chi Onwurah MP
Luke Pollard MP
Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP
Alex Sobel MP
Paul Sweeney MP