Readers like you keep news free for everyone.
More than 5,000 readers have already pitched in to keep free access to The Journal.
For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can help keep paywalls away.
PA Wire/PA Images
# caretaker government
Jeremy Corbyn urges parties to make him caretaker PM to defeat no-deal Brexit
Corbyn has called on opposition leaders to support a Labour caretaker government.
UK LABOUR PARTY leader Jeremy Corbyn has called on opposition party leaders to install him as caretaker Prime Minister to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
In a letter to rebel Tory MPs and party leaders, Corbyn proposed ousting Boris Johnson as PM through a no-confidence vote, allowing Labour to form a caretaker government until a general election is called.
Outlining his plan, Corbyn said his caretaker government would be “strictly time-limited”.
Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson quickly shot down Corbyn’s plan, however, describing it as “nonsense.
“Jeremy Corbyn is not the person who is going to be able to build an even temporary majority in the House of Commons for this task – I would expect there are people in his own party and indeed the necessary Conservative backbenchers who would be unwilling to support him.
“It is nonsense,” she said.
The UK is due to leave the European Union by Halloween.
With Boris Johnson three weeks into the top job, the EU has stood firm against re-opening negotiations with the British government, rejecting Downing Street’s calls to drop the Irish backstop.
This tension is setting the UK on a course to crash out of the EU on 31 October with no deal.
I've written to the leaders of other political parties and senior backbenchers from across Parliament to lay out my plan to stop a disastrous No Deal Brexit and let the people decide the future of our country. pic.twitter.com/Jz1MjXCrqk
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 14, 2019
In his letter, Corbyn wrote: “This government has no mandate for no deal, and the 2016 EU referendum provided no mandate for no deal.
“I therefore intend to table a vote of no confidence at the earliest opportunity when we can be confident of success.
“Following a successful vote of no confidence in the government, I would then, as leader of the opposition, seek the confidence of the House for a strictly time-limited temporary government with the aim of calling a general election, and securing the necessary extension of article 50 to do so.”
