Labour has been accused of failing to scrutinise the government and oppose Theresa May’s plans to take Britain out of the European Union.
In a passionate outburst on BBC Question Time on Thursday, Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael lambasted Labour’s Emily Thornberry for “opening the door” to Tory policies.
Carmichael said: “Emily cannot sit there and say that she’s going to have an adult conversation and then in the next breath say that the Labour Party will not stand in the way of Brexit.
“It is the job of the official opposition in Parliament to scrutinise government.
“We know what the Conservatives want to do now. We know they want to take us out of the Single Market, we know they want to take us out of the customs union.
“We heard from Philip Hammond at the weekend that they want to make us a Singapore without the sunshine.
“We’re going to be a low tax, low regulation economy.. you’re just going to open the door to that?”
Emily Thornberry replied: “The difficulty is that Labour is not in power, I don’t know anybody has noticed that, but the Conservatives are in power.”
Carmichael interrupted Thornberry, saying: “You’re not even in opposition.”