Labour's Corbyn says Theresa May has not moved enough on Brexit

LONDON - Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Theresa May had not moved far enough in a first round of crisis talks aimed at breaking the domestic deadlock over Britain's exit from the European Union.

The United Kingdom was supposed to leave the EU last Friday but, nearly three years after it voted by 52 percent to 48 for Brexit in a referendum, it is still unclear how, when or even whether it will quit the bloc it joined in 1973.

After her EU withdrawal deal was rejected three times by lawmakers, the Conservative prime minister invited Corbyn, a veteran socialist, to talks in parliament to try to plot a way out of the crisis.

"There hasn't been as much change as I expected," Corbyn, 69, said. "The meeting was useful but inconclusive."

Asked if May had accepted his preference for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU, he said: "We did have a discussion about all of that."

Corbyn is under pressure from some in his party not to agree a Brexit deal without ensuring that it can be confirmed or rejected in a new referendum that also offers the option to stay in the EU. He himself has said such a vote should be restricted to specific circumstances.

"I said: 'Look, this is a policy of our party that we would want to pursue the option of a public vote to prevent crashing out or prevent leaving on a bad deal,'" he said. "There was no agreement reached on that."

Reuters