JEREMY Corbyn is under pressure to make Labour an explicitly Remain party. Deputy leader Tom Watson said the

shift was the right thing to do, even if it lost the party votes.

Watson said Labour would pay “a very high electoral price” unless their position on Brexit was clear at the next General Election.

The party’s policy is to have a General Election, and then for the Labour government to push through their own Brexit deal.

Only if that’s not possible would they then back a second referendum.

Watson told the BBC backing Remain in a new vote was the only choice available to Labour. He said: “Sometimes in politics your choices are the least worst option.

“It is my honestly held view

that parliament will not be able

to get a deal on Brexit and therefore the only choice, reluctantly,

is to ask the people to take another look at it.”

When asked if he would leave the Labour Party, he replied, “I’m never going to leave the Labour Party,”

but added “sometimes I wonder whether the Labour Party is

leaving me”.

He said Labour “might lose some votes if we change position”,

but added: “I think it’s incumbent on us to give an honest account

of ourselves and make the case

for why we have changed our position.”

Watson backs a one-off meeting or ballot of members to be held to vote on a shift in policy.

There was support for Watson’s position from Scottish Labour’s

Ian Murray.

“For the communities we represent, it is vital that Labour puts the national interest first and is at the forefront of the fight to stay in the EU,” Murray said.

He added.“If you stand in the middle of the road you please nobody and get hit from

both sides.”

However, Labour chairman Ian Lavery disagreed. “Brexit has turned this country into a toxic nation,”

he said.“However, ignoring

the 17.4 million Leave voters isn’t politically smart nor indeed particularly democratic. Is it?”

His colleague John Mann told the BBC: “The majority won and the majority voted to leave.

“A large majority of Labour

voters in the north, this is going to lose Labour the next General Election by a significant

amount.

“I can tell you this as well, some MPs who have been speaking this morning and I have seen and spoken to in private.

“What they have said is they have never ever rebelled, are up in arms about this. Because they realise the reality on the ground. They talk to their own voters, they know they are in the north and the Midlands.

“It is Labour voters who voted Leave and this would be catastrophic for whoever wants to be a Labour government.”

Last week, Scottish Labour’s ruling NEC voted to back another Brexit referendum.

The policy is to now campaign for any Brexit deal to be automatically put to the people.

Richard Leonard said Scottish Labour would “wholeheartedly campaign for a Remain victory in such a vote”.

The party slumped to fifth place in the European elections, taking just 9.3% of the vote and losing both of their MEPs.