Labour's Corbyn backs second vote on Brexit deal

UK opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would support a second Brexit referendum on any deal after the party's poor showing at last week's European elections.

The Labour vote suffered a dramatic slump as supporters who want to stay in the European union chose other pro-EU parties as a protest against Corbyn's refusal to explicitly back a new referendum.

Combined with the rise of the populist Brexit Party, Labour only managed a 14.6% vote share, and lost half of it's MEPs, leaving it with 10.

Corbyn was forced to admit to his Westminster MPs that the Brexit deadlock “can now only be broken by the issue going back to the people through a general election or a public vote”.

“We are ready to support a public vote on any deal”.

Corbyn's preferred position was to force the government to call a General Election, with a second referendum a backup option to stop a Conservative-led no-deal Brexit.

Corbyn ally and shadow chancellor John McDonnell also backed the idea.

“Our only option now is to go back to the people in a referendum and that is the position we’re in now.”

The move is bound to split the party as MPs in leave-supporting constituencies warned their voters would abandon Labour for the Brexit Party and supporting a no-deal exit.

Labour MP Lisa Nandy said it a second vote would damage trust in the party from those who felt a decision to leave had been taken in the 2016 poll.

“I think we’ve got to wake up to the seriousness not just of what we’re about to do to the Labour party, but what we’re about to do to the country because I strongly suspect that if there is a second referendum people here would come out and vote in fairly large numbers and probably vote for no deal," she told the BBC.

“There is a huge frustration amongst Labour voters who voted leave in towns like mine to see leading figures from the Labour party out calling for a second referendum before there has been any serious attempt to implement the result of the first.”