Speaking to TalkRADIO, the Co-Chair of Labour Leave praised Jeremy Corbyn for keeping both sides of the Brexit debate in his party content until now but warned the Labour leader will have to come up with a new plan to survive calls for a second vote to be included in his manifesto ahead of the EU elections. More than 90 MPs and MEPS have written to Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) saying Labour should back a public vote and campaign on it during the elections. Ms Hoey said: “It’s going to be a very heated national executive and probably will last quite a while.

“I do feel that Jeremy on this issue has held out very well for quite a long time.

“We know that he really would like to get us out so that if Labour is in government we’ll be able to make decisions with nothing to do with the European Union.

“But he is under increasing pressure and particularly now from some of the trade unions.

“So I think today we will probably end up with an even more carefully crafted fudge which will attempt to continue to keep both sides – in the sense of those who don’t want a second referendum and those who do, mainly people who are part of the Remain establishment who actually don’t want us to leave and see a second referendum or a confirmatory vote as they try to cleverly say, not really a second referendum but a vote on the deal.

He is under increasing pressure and particularly now from some of the trade unions

Kate Hoey

“And I think that we will end up with a kind of fudge.

“But people will see through it and I’m afraid the damage has already been done to Labour in our heartland because we have looked like we have renamed on our manifesto which was that we would continue to support leaving the EU.”

Labour’s current policy is to back a second referendum in the event of a no-deal Brexit or one that would prove damaging to the UK.

Those in favour of the new vote refer to the second ballot as a “confirmatory referendum”.

The letter to the NEC states: “Labour has already, rightly, backed a confirmatory public vote.

“The overwhelming majority of our members and voters support this, and it is the democratically established policy of the party.

The NEC will meet tomorrow in crunch talks to decide Labour’s manifesto for the European elections on May 23.

Mr Corbyn, who heads up the NEC, has been urged to take divisive action regardless of the outcome of current cross-party negotiations on Brexit.

Earlier, Cabinet minister member and Conservative MP David Lidington said Labour had raised the issue in the latest round of talks on Brexit.

Speaking after the latest negotiations, he said: “We’ve always known this is part of Labour’s policy platform, so it’s something I would have expected them to raise at these meetings and they have.

“Equally, they know this is not something that is government policy and the last couple of times it has come before the House of Commons, it has been defeated.”

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