Labour MP on local elections: 'We sat in the middle of the road

MP David Lammy at a People's Vote march. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA. - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

DAVID LAMMY, the Labour MP for Tottenham and a leading supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, says Labour sat in the middle of the road on Brexit… and got ran over.

Nye Bevan said it: people who sit in the middle of the road get run over. That is what happened to Labour last night – we fudged and hedged on a People’s Vote, hoping we could string voters along – but the bluff has been called.

Look at the results in the so-called ‘Leave areas’: they show Labour losing votes not to parties that support some form of Brexit but to parties that support a People’s Vote.

Too often the media has caricatured these areas as if everyone who lives there are all backing Brexit but it has been clear for some time that, if this ever was true for Labour voters, it is no longer the case.

Detailed polling has shown that the overwhelming majority of Labour’s heartlands supporters back a new public vote on Brexit and would choose to stay in the European Union if given the chance.

For too long these voters have been taken for granted by the Labour Party as it chases after a diminishing group of Leave supporters.

The polls are now being confirmed by real votes in these local elections as many Labour voters have deserted the party for the Liberal Democrats or the Green Party.

A warning shot has been fired. I hope our leadership will now take notice.

• A YouGov poll of 5004 Labour voters in the North and the Midlands between February 26 and March 1 showed that 75% of Labour’s heartland voters who expressed an opinion said they supported the party giving the public a new vote on Brexit.

• If there is new vote on Brexit, these same voters would support staying in the EU by 76% to 24%.