In the letter he sent out on Wednesday, the opposition leader said that “all tactics available to prevent No Deal” need to be discussed.
“The country is heading into a constitutional and political storm, so it is vital that we meet urgently, before Parliament returns,” the invitation said.
MP’s are set to be back from their summer break on 3 September, and the meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, 27 August.
Corbyn reiterated his belief that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will leave the EU on 31 October, the Brexit deadline, deal or no deal, and warned that the leaked government no-deal Brexit dossier, known as Operation Yellowhammer, only proves this:
“The chaos and dislocation of Boris Johnson's no-deal Brexit is real and threatening, as the Government's leaked Operation Yellowhammer dossier makes crystal clear,” the Labour leader wrote.
Britain could face food, medicine and fuel shortages as well as port delays - the leaked report outlined as among the scenarios the UK could face if it leaves the European Union without a transition Brexit deal.
But the government downplayed the dossier, which was compiled earlier this month. Michael Gove, who is the minister responsible for no-deal planning, insisted that Yellowhammer represented only a “worst-case scenario”.
But this is not the first letter Corbyn has sent out in a call to calling to stop a no-deal Brexit. Last week he wrote to the leaders of the Scottish National Party, Welsh national party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party and suggested averting no deal by ousting Boris Johnson as prime minister and allowing Labour to form a caretaker government until a general election.
“So he’s trying to broadly appeal from being simply a Labour caretaker government into being one that many parties can support. But the problem is Corbyn himself - that’s the issue,” Dr Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History at Newcastle University, said.
“He is regarded by many of the other parties as being an extremist, as being unpopular, as being divisive and he’s on most grounds alone, as Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrats leader, has already said himself. But I think this particular conception of a caretaker government won’t come to pass”, Dr Farr added.
In his turn, Chris Stafford, a doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham, called this proposal a “bold move,” but said “it isn’t clear if it will work”.
Stafford believes that Corbyn may be doing this to show the British people his strong position on Brexit.
“Labour’s stance on Brexit has been notoriously unclear for a while now. Although this worked well for them initially, more recently voters have gotten impatient and demanded clearer positions, costing Labour support. This move may go some way towards winning back support, but there is a lot more to be done if Corbyn wants to recapture his 2017 levels of popularity”, Stafford explained.
Dr. Farr though believes that this would be impossible, as Corbyn is very unpopular with the British public. “Corbyn has extremely low ratings in the public. Corbyn is an example of a politician who is very popular with his own supporters, but doesn’t have any appeal beyond that.”
But at the same time the Newcastle University senior lecturer called the current situation very complicated. A vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson's government could take place after the Parliament returns from recess. And Corbyn is the one who has to mount the no-confidence motion in Johnson’s administration. The opposition leader said this week that he plans to do so after the break.
“It’s extremely complicated and no one knows what will happen. And it’s complicated because there’s no majority in parliament. So each of these initiatives requires a certain number of MPs from other parties to break with their party and essentially it’s asking Conservative MPs to bring down a Conservative government which is a remarkable thing for them, and certainly in career terms, it will end their careers overnight, so it’s a really big challenge.” Dr Farr stressed.
Views and opinions, expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
