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UK Labour says general election should follow a failed Brexit vote

A video grab from footage broadcast by the UK Parliament's Parliamentary Recording Unit (PRU) shows Britain's opposition Labour party Brexit secretary Keir Starmer speaking during the Legal advice on the EU withdrawal agreement debate in the House of Commons in central London on November 13, 2018. (AFP photo)

Britain’s opposition Labour Party says the Conservative government of Prime Minister Theresa May should resign if the UK Parliament rejects her Brexit deal with the European Union.

Labour’s shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer also said Sunday that the party would seek a vote of no confidence in the government if May lost the vote on her Brexit deal, a widely forecast outcome.

“If she’s lost a vote of this significance after two years of negotiation, then it is right that there should be a general election,” Starmer told Sky News.

May has been engaged in a campaign to sell her Brexit deal to the public hoping that people could persuade their representatives in the House of Commons that the agreement is the best option available for Britain.

She has repeatedly reiterated that if the deal is rejected, Britain’s economy should face a disastrous scenario of leaving the EU with no deal.

The government has also made it clear that Britain will leave the EU on March 29, 2019 regardless of the votes in Parliament, saying there would be no chance for a renegotiation of the Brexit agreement.

However, Starmer said seeking a confidence vote against May would be inevitable if she loses the Brexit vote.

“I think it’s inevitable that we will seek to move that,” he said, adding “We need to see what that is. But it seems to me that if the prime minister has lost a vote of that sort of significance, then there has to be a question of confidence in the government.”

Starmer also said that Labour would press for contempt proceedings against the government if May fails to produce the full legal advice she has received on her Brexit deal.

“If they don’t produce it tomorrow, then we will start contempt proceedings, and this will be a collision course between the government and parliament,” said the senior opposition lawmaker.


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