Brexit: Labour faces being wiped out unless party backs second referendum, Corbyn warned

Jeremy Corbyn has been warned the Labour party could be wiped out unless it comes up with a "coherent" Brexit stance as the pro-EU Liberal Democrats topped a shock new poll.

Former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell said the party would be "complicit" in ushering Boris Johnson into Downing Street and paving the way for a no-deal Brexit if it did not back a Final Say vote.

The Labour leadership is under pressure to stem the flow of Remain voters to pro-EU parties at the recent European Parliament elections, where the party slipped to third place.

Labour supporters of a second referendum had hoped Mr Corbyn was moving towards explicitly backing a Final Say, after he appeared to warm to the idea of a public vote on any deal.

However the Labour leader resisted pressure from shadow cabinet colleagues to campaign for a new referendum, saying he would try to renegotiate a deal with Brussels.

It comes as a YouGov poll put the Lib Dems on 24 per cent, ahead of the Brexit Party on 22 per cent and the Tories and Labour neck and neck on 19 per cent.

The survey for The Times marks the first time the Lib Dems have topped a general election poll since the height of Nick Clegg's popularity in 2010.

Mr Campbell, who was expelled from Labour for voting Lib Dem in an act of Brexit protest, told the Today programme: "We can either talk about my membership and my expulsion or actually talk about what is happening in the Brexit debate in our country.

"Why the Labour party is being virtually annihilated in these elections and is now seeing the Lib Dems of all people ahead in the polls.

"The Labour party has not had a clear, coherent, credible position on Brexit and until it gets that, it is not going to win back the support of many, many people that it has lost."

He added: "Unless the Labour party adopts a credible, coherent position, commits to a people's vote, then they will be complicit in helping Boris Johnson become prime minister and crashing out with no deal."

Mr Campbell, who is appealing his expulsion, said his lawyers believed there was a case for "discrimination" as other Labour grandees have not been kicked out for voting for other parties.

He also claimed shadow cabinet members such as Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry had told him the decision is "bonkers and they all think it should be reviewed".

In a sign of deep tensions over Labour's Brexit stance, Unite leader Len McCluskey warned that supporting another referendum would be "electorally suicidal".

"A further referendum will only pump more venom into the body politic. So then we are left with simply cancelling Brexit – revoking Article 50.

"For Labour to embrace such a position, as some seem now to be inching towards, would be not just electorally suicidal, it would represent a profound rupture in our movement’s democratic traditions,” he wrote in a piece for HuffPost.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson, who has entered her party's leadership race, welcomed the poll showing the Lib Dems could win a general election held tomorrow.

She said: "There's clearly an appetite for the liberal values we stand for.

"There's a huge job to build and grow that wider liberal movement and that's what I'm determined to do and that's why I'm running to be leader of the Lib Dems."

Asked if she could see a Lib Dem prime minister, Ms Swinson told Today: "I think we should be very ambitious".

However YouGov's Chris Curtis warned the party against getting too carried away with the surge in support they have enjoyed since the European elections.

He said: "The Cleggmania of 2010 faded fast, with the party falling back in the final weeks of the campaign and ending up with just 1 per cent more of the vote than they had won five years prior."

:: YouGov surveyed 1,736 British adults on May 28-29.