Jeremy Corbyn to back second Brexit referendum and could agree new vote in days

Jeremy Corbyn is poised to support a people’s vote on Brexit after being trounced at the EU elections, the Mirror can reveal.

And senior figures said he could announce his backing within days.

After the exodus of supporters to Remain parties the Lib Dems and Greens amid accusations he was sitting on the Brexit fence, the leader now looks poised to back a people’s vote within days.

He has been under mounting pressure to get behind a ­referendum.

And Welsh Labour leader Mark Drakeford, who spoke to Mr Corbyn on the phone this week, fuelled hopes of a breakthrough.

He said: “He continues to get advice from a variety of different sources. I think the UK position is still evolving. We will hear more about it, I believe, over this week.”

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, a key ally of Mr Corbyn, added: “We’re supporting a people’s vote strongly now because it’s the right thing to do and it’s democratic.

“There is no inherent contradiction between respecting the result of the referendum and having a people’s vote, not least because it’s still not sure how a people’s vote would pan out.”

A senior Shadow Cabinet minister said: “We need to be more definitive quickly and you’ll see that in the next couple of days, to give our membership confidence again that they can get back on the doorstep, because they couldn’t this time round.”

Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson urged his boss to “show some humility, to listen and to move very, very quickly”.

Labour won just 14.1% of the vote and 10 seats at last week’s EU elections, compared with 20.3% and 16 seats for the Lib Dems and 12.1% and seven seats for the Greens. Both of those jubilant parties support a second referendum.

The Tories got a miserly 9.1% of the vote, winning just four seats.

But if Mr Corbyn does back a people’s vote, he risks losing Labour Leavers to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which triumphed at the elections.

Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan, said: “There is a huge frustration amongst Labour voters who voted Leave in towns like mine to see leading figures from Labour calling for a second referendum before there’s been any serious attempt to implement the result of the first.

“I strongly suspect if there is a second referendum people here would come out and vote in fairly large numbers and probably vote for no-deal.”

Labour Leave general secretary Brendan Chilton added: “We performed horrifically across North England and fell to a historically unprecedented third place in Wales.

“The Brexit Party topped the polls across these regions, and indeed across much of the UK.

“We are being too ambiguous in our policy and, to many of our traditional supporters, we are reneging on our manifesto commitment to leave the EU in 2017.”

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott , a key ally of Mr Corbyn, indicated a change from the top was close.

She said: “We’re supporting a People’s Vote strongly now because it’s the right thing to do and it’s the democratic thing to do.”

Insisting the party was “foregrounding” a second referendum, she added: “There is no inherent contradiction between respecting the result of the referendum and having a People’s Vote, not least because it’s still not sure how a People’s Vote would pan out.”

She went on: “Our position is that ideally we want a general election – if we can’t get a general election in time, we would support a People’s Vote.”

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair said he voted Labour “without great enthusiasm” last week as he stepped up demands for the party to support another referendum.

He said Mr Corbyn “has got to come to a clear position”, telling Sky News: “The one that is very obvious is that both party leaderships have made the same mistake, which is to think that it’s possible to sit on the fence on Europe and appeal to both sides.

“What the European elections show you is that isn’t possible.”