Labour’s Brexit offer too similar to the Tories’, say LabourList readers

Labour’s Brexit offer is not sufficiently different enough to that of the Conservatives, LabourList readers have said.

Some 61 per cent of our readers said the policies developed on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU were too similar to those of the government, while 28 per cent said they did mark a substantially different point of view. Just over one in ten, 11 per cent, are unsure.

There has been an intense debate across the labour movement on whether the party should adopt a different position. For Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA and a key figure on the left, Britain should retain the option of staying in the EU. The TUC is broadly supportive of staying in the single market, and there are various MPs who are pushing for a pro-single market stance.

Sarah Champion should not have resigned after her Sun article, our respondents narrowly think.

Just under half, 48 per cent, think she was wrong to leave the frontbench after her comments in the tabloid newspaper where she referred to a “Pakistani men problem”.  Only five percentage points less, 43 per cent, think her resignation was correct and nine per cent are unsure.

And Labour should introduce more all-women shortlists for council candidates selections, our readers think.

A little under half, 48 per cent, would back a move towards positive discrimination to correct the party’s gender imbalance in local government, with a third, 34 per cent, disagreeing. Under one in five, 18 per cent, are unsure.

This comes as the party’s shortfall in women councillors was revealed in a report this week. Just 37 per cent of Labour’s councillors are women, and one Labour metro mayoralty, Liverpool city region, has no women in its ruling board.