Corbyn shouldn't be scared about a Final Say referendum putting off voters in Labour heartlands

Labour MPs representing seats in the midlands and the north should make their decision about the upcoming vote knowing what their constituents really want

New opinion polling by YouGov in the midlands and north of England reveals greater support for giving the people a Final Say on Brexit than some of Jeremy Corbyn’s advisers may fear.

The poll finds that three-quarters of voters in these “Labour heartlands” who express an opinion support the party’s policy – significantly strengthened by the Labour leader this week – of putting any Brexit deal to a new referendum. Among voters who currently intend to vote Labour, the level of support rises to 84 per cent.

This should strengthen the resolve of those Labour MPs who assume that their Leave-voting seats are at risk if they support a public vote. They should understand that, even in Leave-voting areas, most Labour supporters voted Remain, and that even more would vote Remain now.

The poll suggests that if Mr Corbyn had resisted the pressure to come out explicitly in favour of a new referendum, there would have been an electoral price to pay.

The Labour leader knows that, for his party’s supporters who want the UK to stay in the EU, there is now somewhere else for them to go. The launch of the Independent Group of MPs, while they are not yet a political party, means that in by-elections, local elections and even – who knows? – new elections to the European parliament, there could well be credible candidates with a clear position on Europe who could take votes away from Labour.

Today’s poll is published just 10 days before what is likely to be the historic vote in the House of Commons on the prime minister’s minimally tweaked Brexit deal. With the threat of a no-deal Brexit much reduced by Theresa May’s undertaking to be bound by a vote in parliament that would be heavily against it, Labour MPs can now vote against the government’s deal safe in the knowledge that this would mean postponing Brexit.

It would be at this point, if the prime minister’s deal is defeated, that another referendum would become, at last, a real possibility. We applaud the ingenuity of the proposal, first aired in The Independent, by Labour MPs Phil Wilson and Peter Kyle, to offer their support for Ms May’s deal on condition that it be put to a confirmatory referendum.

In today’s Independent, Margaret Beckett, the former deputy Labour leader, endorses this plan, which is likely to be put to a vote of the Commons immediately before the main vote on 12 March. It may not pass, because Mr Corbyn is unlikely to whip his MPs for anything that “approves” the prime minister’s deal, whatever conditions are attached.

But it will ensure, if the government’s deal is defeated, that a new referendum becomes the focus of the debate about what to do next, while leaving the EU is put on hold.

Over the next few days all MPs have to think hard about how they are going to vote in the crucial division on the Brexit deal. Labour MPs representing seats in the midlands and the north should make their decision knowing what their constituents really want, and not on the basis of stereotyped assumptions about what Labour voters in northern Leave areas want.