Following Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that Labour is to campaign for a second EU referendum in which it will back Remain, Patrick O’Flynn said: “Labour stood on a manifesto in 2017 of respecting the referendum result. It therefore won votes and seats on false pretences.
“The decision by Mr Corbyn and his shadow cabinet to rip up its promises on Brexit to the British people is a disgusting betrayal. Millions of longtime Labour voters who also voted to leave the EU and were told their party would respect the referendum result have been deceived in the most cynical and disgraceful way.
“Fortunately for them, there is a fast-growing party in the Social Democrats which believes in ending economic austerity, in asking the wealthy to contribute a little more to the public realm and yet is truly committed to the implementation of the Brexit vote.
“From this day on there is literally no discernable reason for any Leave supporter or any true democrat even to consider voting Labour. What was born as a party committed to improving the lot of working class British people has completed its transformation into a mouthpiece for the fashionable and privileged liberal-Left elite. Its particular contempt for working class voters in hundreds of pro-leave constituencies across the country is truly shocking to behold.
“Were such a hostile posture adopted by another party towards an identity group Labour has more sympathy with I have little doubt that Labour figures would be labelling that a ‘hate crime’.”