Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Theresa May had not moved far enough in a first round of crisis talks aimed at breaking the domestic deadlock over Britain’s exit from the European Union.
The United Kingdom was supposed to leave the EU last Friday, but nearly three years after it voted by 52% to 48 for Brexit in a referendum, it is still unclear how, when or even whether it will quit the bloc it joined in 1973.
After her EU withdrawal deal was rejected three times by lawmakers, the Conservative Prime Minister invited Corbyn, a veteran socialist, to talks in parliament to try to plot a way out of the crisis.
“There hasn’t been as much change as I expected,” Corbyn (69) said. “The meeting was useful but inconclusive.”
Asked if May had accepted his preference for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU, he said: “We did have a discussion about all of that.”
Corbyn is under pressure from some in his party not to agree a Brexit deal without ensuring that it can be confirmed or rejected in a new referendum that also offers the option to stay in the EU. He himself has said such a vote should be restricted to specific circumstances.
“I said: ‘Look, this is a policy of our party that we would want to pursue the option of a public vote to prevent crashing out or prevent leaving on a bad deal,'” he said. “There was no agreement reached on that.”
Talks will continue on Thursday.
A Downing Street spokesman said the meeting, which lasted an hour and 40 minutes, had been “constructive, with both sides showing flexibility and a commitment to bring the current Brexit uncertainty to a close”.
“We have agreed a programme of work to ensure we deliver for the British people, protecting jobs and security,” he added.
May’s overture to Corbyn, whose party has 245 out of 650 lawmakers, offers a possible way for her to secure a majority for an exit deal as she seeks a second short delay to Brexit.
But some in the Labour Party have cast her gambit as a trap aimed at scaring her own lawmakers into backing the thrice-defeated deal, or as a way to extend responsibility for the difficulties of Brexit to the Labour Party.
May said on Tuesday she would seek a delay that is “as short as possible” to the current Brexit date of April 12, having repeatedly said she did not want Britain to have to take part in European Parliament elections on May 23.
