Former England star Peter Reid has made a scathing attack on Tory Brexiteers, labelling them “absolute dopes” and calling for a People’s Vote on a final deal.
The ex-Everton and Manchester City midfielder told thousands at a rally close to Labour’s party conference in Liverpool that the public “did not realise what they were voting for” in the 2016 referendum and that Britain “need[s] to be in Europe”.
He was speaking following an anti-Brexit march from the city’s St George’s Hall to a rally at Pier Head.
A crowd waving EU flags chanted ‘bollocks to Brexit’ and ‘it’s not a done deal’ along with some aimed directly at party leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying: ‘Hey Jeremy, take a note, for the many, People’s Vote.’
Reid told the crowd: “Where do you start with this? Brexit David Cameron, prime minister, placated to the Tory right wing of a referendum.
“Tory right wing – think about that. Johnson. Gove. Rees-Mogg. Absolute dopes. And listen, I don’t usually swear, but damn and blast.
“And, by the way, the British, the Great British public, did not realise what they were voting for. I can tell you now, we’re learning more and more. A deal. David Davis – ‘It’ll be easy’. Last week it was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. Another dope. Another dope.”
Reid told the crowd, who booed the name of each Tory Brexiteer, that he had spent that morning watching children playing football.
“This People’s Vote is about them,” he said.
“Johnson. Gove. Rees Mogg. Absolute dopes.” Ex-England midfielder Peter Reid lays into right wingers at People’s Vote rally outside #LabourConference2018 in Liverpool https://t.co/GkPncW9z0j pic.twitter.com/Am03sM3pBL
— ITV News (@itvnews) September 23, 2018
“It’s about their futures and, by the way, we need it to come, this People’s Vote, because we need to be in Europe, we need to be a forerunner in European deals.”
Tottenham MP David Lammy and peer and New European columnist Andrew Adonis were among the other speakers while MP Luciana Berger led the march.
It came after Corbyn said he would be ‘bound’ by the decision of the party’s conference conference on the question of whether the party will back a referendum on any Brexit deal.
Lammy greeted the crowd outside the iconic Royal Liver Building on the bank of the River Mersey by asking: ‘Are you listening Jeremy Corbyn?’
To cheers he highlighted that people from across the UK were present, saying: ‘They are saying squarely to the leadership of the Labour Party ‘listen to us, hear us, give us a People’s Vote'”.
He described Britain as being at a tipping point and faced with a resurgence in the ‘radical right’, saying: “This cannot be a Labour Party that allows others to wreck our country and stand with the far right.”
Lord Adonis told the crowd: ‘The only good Brexit is a dead Brexit.
‘There is no such thing as a good Brexit because Brexit means trashing jobs, trashing Ireland, trashing the young… and our socialist values.’
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