A vote for Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party in the European elections is a vote for a “Donald Trump Brexit”, Jeremy Corbyn has warned.
Speaking at the launch of Labour’s Euro campaign on Thursday, Corbyn also said the party would only back “the option of a public vote” if a “sensible” Brexit deal cannot be agreed and there is not a general election.
The Labour leader said only his party could “see off the Farage snake oil”.
“The Brexit Party is in fact the no-deal party”, the Labour leader told voters in Gillingham. “And for millions no-deal would mean no jobs, an economic shock threatening entire industries and – here in Kent – turning the M20 into a lorry park.”
“It would be an elite Brexit that would only work for the richest,” Corbyn continued.
“It would be a Donald Trump Brexit, leaving us at the mercy of the reckless and bellicose US administration,” he added, warning that a Nigel Farage Brexit was one for “conspiracy theorists” and those “who see Muslims and migrants or George Soros as their enemy”.
Corbyn’s attack on the leader of the newly-formed Brexit Party came just days after Farage revealed that 88,000 thousands people had joined the group since its launch last month.
Attempting to appeal to voters on both sides of the Leave/ Remain divide, Corbyn said that – unlike other parties – Labour would not stoke divisions around Brexit during the elections, but would instead focus on injustices in society.
Labour is the only party attempting to unify the country, he said.
“To transform our country, and tackle injustice, inequality and the climate crisis, we need to unite the overwhelming majority of people and take on the privileged and powerful.
“That’s why we insist the real divide in our country is not how people voted in the EU referendum. The real divide is between the many and the few.”
But the Labour leader admitted that there had not yet been any breakthrough in the party’s talks with the government about ending the Brexit deadlock in parliament.
“It’s difficult negotiating with a disintegrating government with Cabinet ministers jockeying for the succession, rather than working for an agreement,” he said of Theresa May’s team.
“So far in those talks, there has been no big offer, and the red lines remain.”