Labour MPs are mounting a rebellion against their party’s traditionally pro-Brussels line by forming a new anti-EU group.
The MPs hope Labour for Britain (UK), which is expected to be launched on Tuesday, will give voice to the rarely publicised Eurosceptic wing of the party.
Backed by the party’s largest individual donor, it will call for Labour to end its ‘love-in’ with Brussels and call for an ‘out’ vote in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership unless David Cameron wins radical reforms. Leaders of the Labour group estimate that between 20 and 30 party MPs would be in favour of leaving the EU if Cameron failed to secure a significant repatriation of powers back to Westminster.
Rebellion: One member of the new anti-EU group, MP Kate Hoey, pictured with Boris Johnson says the party might have ‘won a few more seats’ if Ed Miliband had backed an EU referendum in the manifesto
The group will be bankrolled by John Mills, businessman brother-in-law of Labour’s London Mayoral candidate Tessa Jowell.
He became the party’s biggest financial backer in 2013 when he gave it £1.65 million.
In an article for today’s Mail on Sunday, one member of the group, MP Kate Hoey, says the party might have ‘won a few more seats’ if Ed Miliband had backed an EU referendum in the manifesto.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3123201/Labour-rocked-anti-EU-rebellion.html