Corbyn faces Brexit backlash from Labour remainers after new demands fail to mention fresh referendum

Follows the Labour leader's letter to Theresa May outlining Labour's five demands for supporting a Brexit deal

Jeremy Corbyn is facing a furious backlash from pro-EU MPs after making no mention of a fresh referendum as he set out Labour’s fresh Brexit terms.

The Labour leader’s letter to Theresa May comes as the prime minister attempts to negotiate new concessions with the EU in her first visit to Brussels since her deal was defeated by a historic margin in Westminster.

But Mr Corbyn’s demands provoked anger from Remain-supporting backbenchers who were hoping to persuade the leadership to give its unequivocal backing to a Final Say referendum – one of the policy options on the table since the party’s conference.

It also made no mention of Labour’s previous six Brexit tests, including a deal having the “exact same benefits” as existing membership of the EU.

The Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who supports a Final Say referendum, posted on his Twitter account: “This is not opposition, it is the facilitation of a deal which will make this country poorer.

“A strong, coherent Labour alternative to this shabby Tory Brexit is absent – it has been since this parliament began. Totally demoralising.”

He continued: “I hate to think what all those young voters who flocked to the party for the first time in 2017 will make of this. Vote Labour, get a Tory Brexit. They will feel like they have been sold down the river.”

Labour MP Chris Leslie added: “Seriously? Offering to help Tory Govt enable Brexit? It’s not just Labour’s conference policy in the bin. When the jobs go and revenues for services dry up as a result – Labour’s leadership will have zero right to complain: they share responsibility.”

Another MP, David Lammy, pointed to a leaked poll on Thursday which claimed Labour could lose an additional 45 seats if the party supports the implementation of Brexit – compared with 11 if it opposes Brexit.

The document, according to the Guardian, added: “There can be no disguising the sense of disappointment and disillusionment with Labour if it fails to oppose Brexit and there is every indication that it will be far more damaging to the party’s electoral fortunes than the Iraq war.”

Mr Lammy said: “Moral and economic arguments aside, failing to oppose Brexit would be a strategic error that would keep Labour out of power for a generation.”

Included in Mr Corbyn’s five demands are close alignment with the single market, “unambiguous agreements” on future security arrangements, and “dynamic alignment” on rights and protections for UK workers.

But one – a call for a “permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs unions” – is unlikely to receive Ms May’s backing given the sheer amount of opposition within the Conservative Party to such a move.

Significantly, Mr Corbyn insisted the prime minister should have Labour’s priorities enshrined in the political declaration setting out future relations with the bloc, rather than the withdrawal agreement itself.

The MP Phil Wilson – a supporter of the Peoples’s Vote campaign for a second public vote – added: “It was perhaps inevitable that at some point my party would publish something like this even though most Labour MPs, members and voters have long since worked out that there is no form of Brexit that can meet the promises made in 2016 or do anything but make people poorer.

“Our party conference agreed last year that if it couldn’t get a general election it should explore other options including a new public vote.

“The party and parliament should examine this option so that if and when it is rejected, Labour can fulfil the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its voters and members by campaigning to give the public the Final Say. In the end there is only one way out of this mess for both our country and the Labour Party – a People’s Vote.”

But speaking on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the party’s shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner defended the shift in policy away from the six tests Labour originally set for a Brexit deal, saying the offer was made “in a spirit of co-operation and compromise”.

“It’s not about tests now,” he said. “What we are doing is saying we believe that these are the options that are available that would actually secure a majority in the House of Commons.”

And Jenny Chapman, a shadow Brexit minister, said of the demands: “Sensible, reasonable, negotiable with the EU and the only way she’s [Ms May] going to get her deal through parliament.”