Anti-Brexit protesters gather with placards ahead of a march through the centre of Liverpool in support of a People's Vote. —AFP
Still, Labour faces a major political dilemma over Brexit. Most of the party's half a million members voted in 2016 to remain in the EU, but many of its 257 lawmakers represent areas that supported Brexit.
“For Labour to adopt a second referendum policy would spell political disaster in all those Labour seats that voted leave,” said Brendan Chilton of the pro-Brexit group Labour Leave.
Since the 2016 referendum, Labour has stuck to a policy of “constructive ambiguity” in a bid to appeal to both “leave” and “remain” voters. The party opposes May's “Tory Brexit” plan but not Brexit itself. It calls for Britain to leave the EU but remain in the bloc's customs union with “full access” to the EU's huge single market.
Len McCluskey, leader of the Unite trade union, a powerful Labour ally, said British voters had decided to leave the EU and “for us now to enter some kind of campaign that opens up that issue again I think would be wrong.”
Yet Pro-EU Labour members, including many lawmakers, say the party's ambiguous stance is becoming increasingly untenable as the risk of an economically damaging “hard Brexit” grows.
The Conservative government's blueprint for future trade ties with the bloc was rejected last week by EU leaders at a summit in Salzburg, Austria. That left May's leadership under siege and Britain at growing risk of crashing out of the EU on March 29 with no deal in place.
Andrew Adonis, a Labour member of the House of Lords who supports holding a second referendum, said Labour can't sit on the sidelines while the country staggers toward political and financial chaos.
“This is as big a crisis as I can remember in my lifetime,” Adonis said. “And no one has a clue at the moment what is going to happen.
“That's why I think we now need to take a stand we the Labour Party and we the country.”
Brexit is one of several challenges facing Corbyn, who heads a divided party. He has strong support among grassroots members, many of whom have joined since he was elected leader in 2015. But many Labour lawmakers think his old-fashioned socialism is a turnoff for the wider electorate.
Labour has also been roiled by allegations that Corbyn, a long-time critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, has allowed anti-Semitism to fester inside the party. He has denied it and condemned anti-Semitism, but the furor has angered many Jewish party members and their supporters.
Labour backed the “remain” side during the 2016 referendum but Corbyn's support was lukewarm.
“Jeremy Corbyn is a Brexiteer and always has been,” said Chilton of Labour Leave. “More and more people now support us leaving the European Union and getting on with it. ... they don't want to re-fight the referendum.”