Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Labour deputy leader Tom Watson tells Corbyn to back a second referendum… Labour must be ready to throw its full support behind another referendum on Brexit, its deputy leader Tom Watson says today, as a new poll shows 86% of party members want the British people to be given a final say on the UK’s future relationship with Europe. In an interview with the Observer, Watson says that with the likelihood of a general election growing after Theresa May’s humiliation at the EU summit in Salzburg last week, it is vital the Labour leadership and membership unite to maximise the chance of dislodging the Tories from office. Watson says that while he would prefer Brexit to be debated in an election soon, he is clear that the views of the membership in favour of another public vote must be respected. “Jeremy and I were elected in 2015 to give the Labour party back to its members,” he says. “So if the people’s party decide they want the people to have a final say on the deal, we have to respect the view of our members and we will go out and argue for it.” He added: “That is what happens when you return the party to the members.” Asked if this should mean Labour commits to another national vote in its next election manifesto, he said: “There is going to be pressure in the system for that to happen.” – Observer …while John McDonnell says he wants Labour to push ahead with Brexit… Labour would fight a snap general election vowing to press ahead with Brexit, but it would secure better terms, John McDonnell has said, defying demands from party members to include a second-referendum pledge in any manifesto… The shadow chancellor told the Guardian he would expect his party’s stance to be similar to the one it took in 2017. “We would be in the same situation there, where we would be saying: we’re accepting that original vote; this is the sort of deal that we want,” McDonnell said. “I really think people want this sorted. That means negotiating a deal that will meet people’s objectives. So you don’t get hung up on the semantics; you do the deal that will protect their jobs, and address some of the concerns that they had during the referendum.” – Guardian …but Corbyn says he will back a second referendum if a motion backing one passes at Labour conference… He said: “What comes out of conference I will adhere to. But I’m not calling for a second referendum. I hope we will agree that the best way of resolving this is a General Election. “But I was elected to empower the members of the party. So if conference makes a decision I will not walk away from it and I will act accordingly.” Mrs May said: “Advocating a second referendum and extending article 50 to delay Brexit is sending us right back to square one. “Many in Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP are trying to thwart Brexit at every step.” – Sunday Mirror > Yesterday on BrexitCentral: Brian Monteith: Blocking Brexit or backing another referendum would cost Labour at the polls Fawzi Ibrahim: Jeremy Corbyn must resist the calls to back a second EU referendum … and that Labour will force a general election if Theresa May can’t get a deal through Parliament Labour will launch a plan to force an election by seeking a motion of no confidence in the government within days if Theresa May’s Brexit deal is defeated in parliament, The Independent has learnt. Jeremy Corbyn and his top team will launch an attempt to force the Conservative administration to go to the people at what they believe will be a moment of maximum weakness for the prime minister. Multiple sources confirmed party chiefs have game-planned their approach if Ms May’s beleaguered proposals are vetoed in a crucial commons vote or if she fails to get a deal in Europe, which looks increasingly likely after EU leaders torpedoed them earlier this week. – Independent Downing Street aides reportedly ‘war-gaming’ snap election to save Brexit Theresa May’s aides have secretly begun contingency planning for a snap election in November to save the Brexit talks and her job after EU leaders rebuffed the prime minister’s Chequers plan. Two senior members of May’s Downing Street political operation responded to her summit humiliation in Salzburg last week by “war-gaming” an autumn vote to win public backing for a new plan. In a telephone conversation on Thursday evening one of them said to another Tory strategist: “What are you doing in November — because I think we are going to need an election.” – Sunday Times Jeremy Hunt warns European Union leaders to ‘step back from the abyss’ of a no-deal Brexit Jeremy Hunt has urged EU leaders to “step back from the abyss” of a no-deal Brexit and engage with Theresa May’s Chequers plan. This week’s Salzburg summit saw angry clashes and the Foreign Secretary said it was “counterproductive” to “insult” Britain’s referendum vote and to say the only way the UK could legally leave was by “breaking up your country”. “What we need to be doing in a situation like this is bringing people together,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “This is a time for people in the EU to step back from the abyss, to sit down and to talk to us about how we can make these sensible, concrete proposals actually work.” After EU leaders meeting in Austria on Thursday warned a key element of the Chequers plan would not work, Mr Hunt called them to engage with Britain in a “spirit of politeness and decency” to find an agreed solution. – The Sun Nigel Farage launches campaign against ‘Brexit betrayal’ Nigel Farage has told a rally of supporters that the EU are a “bunch of gangsters” and a campaign is needed to stop a “Brexit betrayal”. Speaking in front of more than 1,000 people in Bolton, the former UKIP leader said out-of-touch “career politicians” did not want to respect the UK’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union. He said a cross-party campaign was required to keep the country on course for Brexit, regardless of whether a deal could be made between the UK and EU. – Sky News Tory donor threatens to fund breakaway Brexit party to ‘deliver’ on EU referendum A leading Conservative donor is threatening to fund a new pro-Brexit party if Theresa May fails to deliver on the EU referendum. Jeremy Hosking, a City financier who donated £1.5 million to the Leave campaign and has given £375,000 to the Conservatives since 2015, has carried out private polling he believes shows “clear support” for a new party that would help achieve “what the electorate thought it would be getting” following the 2016 vote. Mr Hosking, who says Leave voters are “being heated up slowly like laboratory frogs” under the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan, says there is a “gap in the political market”. He warns that he “intends to help fill it”. Mrs May is coming under growing pressure from Cabinet ministers and within her party to open the door to ditching her beleaguered blueprint for Brexit in favour of a Canada-style trade agreement with Brussels. But she insists her plan “honours the result of the Referendum” and would lead to the UK taking back control of its borders, money and laws. – Sunday Telegraph (£) /*COMMENT*/ Sunday Times: Mrs May must do better than this ‘Suez for slow learners’ Most prime ministers would hope to avoid the hole in which Theresa May found herself in Salzburg. For any leader, the realisation that not only have your allies disappeared but they are also actively undermining you, is both sobering and humiliating. The spurning of the prime minister in Salzburg will be but a footnote in history, unlike, say, her Tory predecessor Anthony Eden’s humbling over Suez in 1956. But if you wanted an analogy for this government’s inept and tin-eared approach to Brexit, Suez for slow learners would be a fair one. The surprise in Salzburg was not that Mrs May’s pitch to EU leaders — that there is no alternative to Chequers but a no-deal Brexit — was rebuffed, but that she and her entourage were surprised. As with Suez, the warning signs had been there. In the 27 months since Britain voted to leave the EU, the government and the prime minister have repeatedly misstepped. – Sunday Times editorial Jeremy Hosking: Leave voters are being heated up slowly like laboratory frogs In contrast to Party spin – and the Conservative manifesto – the purpose of an increased Parliamentary majority was not to strengthen the UK’s hands in the “negotiations”, but to increase No10’s leverage in out-maneuvering Tory MPs whose integrity might be minded to insist that ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Since then the evidence that we’re being heated up slowly like laboratory frogs, oblivious to our own imminent demise continues to build: Eurosceptics were appointed to key Cabinet positions, then humiliated and undermined by the parallel negotiating channel co-ordinated by No 10. In the meantime, the Brexit organisational apparatus was attacked, first by unexpected tax demands made of referendum donors by HMRC (though not upon donors in earlier referenda) and second by the now discredited Electoral Commission’s relentless attack on Vote Leave and other campaign groups including Brexit Express. The former Foreign Secretary has drawn attention to the Irish backstop banana skin, laid down on December 8 last year which, even to the layman like myself, was clearly a foundation stone to keep the entire UK in the customs union and single market, as is now revealed by the so-called Chequers common rule book.Throughout these episodes, the BBC has provided a helpful EU propaganda backdrop. – Jeremy Hosking for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Gareth Snell: A ‘people’s vote’? It’s an electoral headache for Labour Labour accepts the result of the referendum.’ That’s the opening line of the Brexit chapter in our dazzling manifesto that proved so popular at last year’s general election. Jeremy has said it, John McDonnell has said it and Sir Keir has said it. But as the debate moves on, the 2017 election seems a long time ago and what is now almost inevitable is Labour adopting another referendum as party policy at party conference. The pressure on the party’s leadership is almost irresistible. The membership overwhelmingly support it; a vocal group of Labour MPs want it and the largest affiliated trade unions – as well as the TUC – think it’s the right thing to do. Although a second referendum is seen by some as a way of putting ‘real’ opposition to Brexit into the Labour Party, it’s nothing more than a short-term conference-saving showpiece. The move would end up being a longer-term electoral headache for our party, which is still judged in some communities through the prism of Brexit. – Gareth Snell MP for LabourList Andrew Mitchell: It would be fatal for British politics if we left the EU as a rule taker Ever since Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor of France it has been a core principle of British foreign policy to prevent a coalition of Continental European nations being lined up against us. Over the years we have practiced a policy of “Divide and Survive” and, indeed, shed blood and treasure to secure it. Last Wednesday in Salzburg we succumbed to precisely that fate. It will be for historians to judge how we have arrived at this position. The former Brexit Secretary, David Davis, is almost certainly right that EU deals are only concluded at the eleventh hour.I voted to remain at the Referendum, but not for any great love of the EU. As a minister in the 1990s and again between 2010-2012 I found the EU bureaucratic and undemocratic. I hoped that over a generation British influence in securing sensible reforms would grow and believed that the problems facing us in the future – migration, climate change, pandemics, protectionism, terrorism – all require less narrow nationalism and more international co-operation if they are to be successfully confronted. – Andrew Mitchell MP in the Telegraph (£) Julian Read: After seeing EU leaders’ disgraceful behaviour towards Theresa May in Salzburg, I no longer oppose Brexit I voted Remain in the referendum as I believed that our future belonged firmly with Europe and especially not with the United States. We are naturally and politically more akin to Europe than than any part of the globe. At least I thought so. After this last week I have changed my mind. The European Union (or at least its leaders) are now behaving in a manner more like the old Soviet Union. They treated our prime minister with a complete lack of respect and even contempt. Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker behaved like schoolroom bullies during the Salzburg summit. Who elected them? Not the British people. This, all because we had the temerity to exercise our democratic right and vote to leave. Woe betide any other country who decides to do the same. – Letter from Julian Read in the Independent Comment in Brief Yes, there can be a second Brexit referendum. In a decade or two – Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times (£) News in Brief Voters back Theresa May against EU bully boys after Salzburg humiliation as majority still back Brexit – The Sun Ministers warn harder EU exit risks breaking up Britain – Guardian Brexit compromise still possible, Donald Tusk says – BBC News