Starmer squirms as he’s put on spot over his push for Labour second referendum on Brexit

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Squirming Sir Keir Starmer has been put on the spot over his push for a second Brexit referendum. The Labour leader was grilled this morning about his support for Remain in an interview on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme.

Referring to his speech earlier this week which saw him pledge Labour would “take back control”, host Sophy Ridge asked: “In your speech you appropriated the language of Brexit, you said you were the man to take back control.

“So is that why you led the campaign for a second referendum? You said that you’d vote Remain in a second referendum and you describe the Leave vote as catastrophic for the UK.”

Sir Keir replied: “What I said in my speech is something I’ve said actually many, many times.

“I voted for Remain and I campaigned for Remain, we lost the referendum.

“But deeper than that, beyond the technical question should we be in the EU or not, I felt that bound up in that referendum was a big question about change. People desperately wanted change.

“That’s why I think ‘take back control’ was such a powerful slogan in a way. It was a Heineken phrase, it got inside people.

“If you can’t make your household budget balance you don’t think you’ve got control. If you don’t think that you can send your child to a school that’s excellent in your area because there isn’t a school that’s excellent you don’t have control.

“If you feel that antisocial behaviour means you can’t go out in your neighbourhood after dark you don’t have control.

“That powerful case for change over and beyond the question of EU membership was always there.

“I’ve always accepted that. I think most people that voted Remain would accept that as well.”

Ms Ridge pressed: “A lot of Leave voters would say they voted Leave because they wanted to leave the EU.

“If you’re honest do you think you’re shifting message because the electorate that mattered to you then was a pro-Remain party membership who would be voting for the next Labour leader and the electorate that matters to you now when you’re promising to take back control are those swing voters, many of them who voted for Brexit?

“Are you changing your message to suit your own purposes?”

Sir Keir said: “No, I’ve long reflected on that 2016 referendum as I’ve reflected on the Scottish referendum in 2014 where a large number of people voted Yes.

“Of course, the technical question on the ballot paper was membership of the EU or independence in Scotland.

“But sitting behind that I think there was a very powerful emotional case for change which I don’t think most Remainers would argue with.

“I certainly didn’t. I’ve always argued the other side of Brexit is delivering the change that’s needed in this country and that’s what I was setting out in my speech earlier this week.”

In his speech on Thursday, the Labour leader said his party would properly deliver on the Brexit campaign message from 2016 as he promised to turn it from a “slogan to a solution”.

Sir Keir pledged to cede fresh powers to local communities away from Westminster with a “Take Back Control Bill”.

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