Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson demanded a second Brexit referendum before a general election.
Party chief Jeremy Corbyn wants a general election when a withdrawal delay has been secured from Brussels.
He would then use the ballot box run-in to fight for another EU vote.
But Mr Watson, Mr Corbyn’s number two, calls for a different sequence of polls in a speech to the Creative Industries Federation on Wednesday.
He will say at London’s Somerset House: “All the huge social issues in our country, from deprivation to rising crime to the environment, have been sacrificed on the altar of Brexit over the last three years.
“That’s why we need to solve Brexit first, once and for all, by a referendum and then have a general election so the country can move forward.”
MPs’ first priority when Parliament returns on October 14 should be stopping no-deal on October 31, Mr Watson will say.
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He will add: “Very difficult though it was, I and many others respected the result of the 2016 referendum for a long time.
“But there eventually comes a point – and we are very far past it now, well into the fourth year since the referendum – when circumstances are so changed, when so much new information has emerged that we didn’t have in 2016, when so many people feel differently to how they felt then, that you have to say, ‘No, that years-old plebiscite is no longer a valid basis on which to take such a momentous decision about the future of the United Kingdom’.”
The Prime Minister held talks with DUP leader Arlene Foster last night(TUES) as they tried to thrash out an alternative to the Irish Backstop, aimed at stopping a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic after Brexit.
But he is trapped in No10 after MPs refused his plea for a general election – unable to go to the polls and refusing to extend the latest EU withdrawal deadline beyond Halloween .
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Downing Street sources have confirmed Mr Johnson will, as well as trying to strike a deal with Brussels, treat the five-week parliamentary prorogation like a general election battle.
He quoted French to dismiss claims the suspension was anti-democratic.
The PM said: “Anybody who says it’s all – this stuff about it being anti-democratic – I mean donnez-moi un break – what a load of nonsense.
“We were very, very clear that if people wanted a democratic moment, if they wanted an election, we offered it to the Labour opposition and mysteriously they decided not to go for it.”
Mr Corbyn vowed to “unleash the biggest people-powered campaign we’ve ever seen” when the election was triggered.
(Image: Rowan Griffiths Daily Mirror)
Speaking at Trades Union Congress in Brighton, he accused the PM of “running away from scrutiny” on the first day of the Westminster shutdown as the Brexit clock ticks down.
Anti-no-deal MPs held fresh talks aimed at reviving a withdrawal pact, insisting it was still possible to force a deal through Parliament.
Labour’s Caroline Flint and Stephen Kinnock plus ex-Tories Rory Stewart , Nick Boles and Lib Dem Norman Lamb launched “MPs for a deal”.
Mr Kinnock said: “This is not a unicorn.
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“We have something here which is the basic foundation of a perfectly pragmatic deal that we believe can command a majority in Parliament and also begin to reunite our deeply-divided country, and even at this eleventh hour we think there is time to do it.
Meanwhile, analysis shows 94 of the 100 towns set to the benefit from the Government’s £3.6billion Towns Fund fund voted Leave, mostly in the North and Midlands – suggesting the Tories will target them in an election.
Nearly a quarter of the towns are in constituencies which need less than a 1% swing to change hands – meaning they are vital for a Commons majority.
It comes as the Mirror launches its manifesto for struggling towns, including handing them more power and independence to make their own decisions.
We are calling for more investment in transport, better healthcare to meet the needs of an ageing population and support for shops to revitalise failing high streets.
