Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he will push ahead with Brexit if he becomes prime minister, defying calls from within his party to back a second referendum.
Corbyn told The Guardian in an interview that, while ultimately “it would be a matter for the party to decide” how to position itself if there was a second referendum, he would not for now push for a public vote.
The opposition leader said, if Labour gained power in a snap election, he would go back to Brussels and seek to negotiate a better agreement ahead of March 29.
“My proposal at this moment is that we go forward, trying to get a customs union with the EU, in which we would be able to be proper trading partners,” he said in an interview published Friday.
“You’d have to go back and negotiate, and see what the timetable would be,” he said.
Labour activists last weekend launched an internal campaign calling on Corbyn to back a second referendum, the Guardian reported.
While wanting to remain in the EU’s custom union, Corbyn took a critical stance toward the bloc’s state aid rules.
“I think the state aid rules do need to be looked at again, because quite clearly, if you want to regenerate an economy … then I don’t want to be told by somebody else that we can’t use state aid in order to be able to develop industry in this country,” he said.
Corbyn also reiterated his opposition to Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, stating parliament “should vote down this deal” in January.