Labour's Brexit position is "deceit", argues Iain Duncan Smith

23 November 2019, 08:52

Iain Duncan Smith told Andrew Pierce that Corbyn is "weak" and his Brexit position is "ludicrous".

Iain Duncan Smith spoke of Jeremy Corbyn's decision to call for a second referendum but to remain neutral on it.

He said: "He's going to take them into the mess and nightmare of another referendum after some kind of negotiation but, at the end of all of that, he doesn't have an opinion."

He continued: "What's the point of being leader if you have no opinion? Leading is about leading, it's not about sitting on the sidelines, waiting till the game is over, and then coming on and saying 'guess what, I'm on the side of the winners'.

"That is a ludicrous position to take and that I'm afraid will be exposed as as weakness because he cannot bring himself to tell the country or his party that either he voted to leave or he voted to remain.

I think that's very weak."

Speaking to Andrew Pierce about the nature of the Labour 'negotiation', he said: "What they're going to do is they're going to negotiate a deal that pretty much has you inside the EU without a vote in the Council.

"Well, you know, what kind of a referendum would that be?

"You only have to either vote to remain or for this ridiculous deal. Nobody who wants to vote to leave gets a vote to leave.

It's a gerrymandered affair."

He then explained that "90 per cent of his shadow cabinet are going to vote against any deal he comes up with" and "vote to remain".

IDS argued: "Labour's position is deceit on the British people.

"What they really want to do is to stay in the EU and in 2017, they told the British people that they would deliver on the referendum - no second referendums.

"They would deliver what the British people voted for. Two years later, they've completely reversed their position.

They're going to impose another referendum on us and the leader cannot even say what his position is, or even now is going to vote. That is ridiculous."