Following the December 2019 election disastrous defeat, Labour has been accused of abandoning Brexiteers across the country with its electoral pledge of a second Brexit referendum. But it does not look like the party is yet to learn from the experience as Labour leadership candidates in the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn are still talking about the benefits of freedom of movement of EU citizens, former Brexit Party MEP Michael Heaver has warned. 

Speaking on his and Martin Daubney’s podcast, Brexit Bros, Mr Heaver said: “You will remember that we were told not so long ago that the country changed their mind. That we were all crying out for a second referendum.

“The Lib Dems were saying that they were just going to revoke and forget about that whole Brexit thing.

“Well, I think what it’s shown is that the level of delusion and insular thinking from people who are completely out of touch with the mood of the country in the Lib Dems, in the Labour Party.

“You can see that having played out now.

“I must say, that the sounds coming out of the Labour leadership race is more of the same from what I can see.

“They still don’t seem to accept that we are a country that wants to control its borders and bring migration down.

“They talk about freedom of movement. I don’t know what you think but to me it certainly looks like this is a Labour Party that still hasn’t learned its lesson.

“I think they’re in for another shellacking at the next general election the way they’re going at the minute.”

It comes after the latest Diagnosis of Defeat report published on Monday revealed Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn were the two main reasons former Labour voters defected to Conservatives at the December general election. 

More than half of the defectors, three quarters of whom chose the Conservative Party, said that Labour would “need to change very significantly” before they would return to the fold.

The report was written by Lord Ashcroft and was based on a poll of more than 10,000 voters as well as focus groups in traditional Labour heartlands that turned blue.

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The billionaire and former Tory grandee also claimed traditional Labour voters deserted the party because it had lost touch with them and “looked down on them while taking their voters for granted”.

The Brexit position the party eventually settled on – that Labour would support a second referendum between remain and a renegotiated deal – was also largely unsuccessful, not least since it was largely seen as the party shifting towards a more pro-EU position.

For many of the people who have followed Mr Corbyn’s career, which has spanned over the course of 37 years, his stance on Brexit might have come as a surprise, as the Labour leader has not always been supportive of being “close” to the bloc.

He voted against membership in 1975, voted against the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, and voted against the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.

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