Kendall says Labour must now make pro-EU case and back referendum

Leadership contender Liz Kendall says Labour must now support an in/out referendum on the European Union, so that the party can start to make the case for staying in. In an interview with today’s Guardian, Kendall says:

“We should have that referendum, make the case and take on the argument, early, strongly and passionately.”

Labour opposed a referendum under Ed Miliband, while David Cameron made it one of the Tories’ main offers of the election. Cameron has now talked up the possibility of moving a referendum forward from 2017 to next year.

Kendall also told the paper that last week’s election result was “catastrophic” and that the challenges facing Labour are “fundamental”.

“We have got to face up to the catastrophic scale of the defeat and the scale of the response we need to win again, and that is what this leadership contest has to be about.

“It is not about who is best known in the parliamentary Labour party in 2015. It is about who is going to face up to the challenges we now face. We need a leader who is going to lead a team, because the challenges are so fundamental. It is a catastrophe. We should have won a majority – we had fewer seats to win back than any opposition in a generation, yet we ended up with the worst result since 1987.”

The Shadow Health and Social Care minister says the party now faces a complex problem of winning over UKIP, SNP and Tory voters, and that the party cannot win simply by appealing to one of those groups.

“This is not a minor issue of cobbling together a new coalition of voters. It is about profound change in our party, if we are to change our country. You have got to win back UKIP, SNP and Tory voters but we have got understand the nature of the problem. I understand why people to move on to leadership issues, but the first stage is understanding what has happened.”