All eyes this morning are on Britain’s Brexit divorce bill, but meanwhile Labour’s Brexit strategy remains as confused as ever. Diane Abbott is the latest figure from the party’s frontbench to hint at the possibility of a second referendum, despite this being ruled out by Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to June’s snap election. In a letter to two constituents this month, the shadow home secretary wrote:
‘I will argue for the right of the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed.’
Abbott is now suggesting those remarks were ‘poorly worded’. This seems hard to believe; indeed, that sentence couldn’t have been much clearer: voters should get another say. It’s true that Abbott stops short of suggesting that another vote could be used to reverse the outcome of the first vote here. But her argument that voters should be given another vote at all strays close to the line on Labour’s position on a second referendum.
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