Pressure builds on UK's Labour Party over second Brexit vote

Thousands of grassroots members of the United Kingdom's Labour Party have begun an intensive lobbying campaign aimed at persuading their leaders to get behind the idea of a second Brexit referendum.

The Labour Party, which is currently the UK's official opposition, has, until now, been working to deliver on the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum, in which British voters decided by a narrow margin that the nation should leave the European Union.

However, the party's complicity in the UK's pending exit from the bloc is at loggerheads with the feelings of many of its members and supporters. Polls suggest around 80 percent of the party's supporters want the UK to remain a member of the EU and pundits believe the party's policy of not standing in the way of Brexit triggered a hemorrhaging of support during the recent European elections.

Campaigners within the party are now collecting signatures on a petition that calls on the party's ruling body – the national executive committee – to ballot all party members and ask them whether Labour should call for a second Brexit referendum, which would give UK voters a chance to reverse the decision to leave the bloc.

The letter says: "Party members are increasingly concerned that Labour's chances of winning the next general election could be harmed if we fail to commit clearly to a public vote on Brexit, and to campaign for Remain in that referendum."

It goes on to say the next party conference, where policy is normally set, is four months away and that "it's essential that we clarify our position as a party much more quickly".

The Guardian newspaper said Mike Buckley, director of the Labour For A People's Vote campaign, said the group wants the party to schedule a special conference, or a ballot of members, before the end of June.

Tom Watson, the party's deputy leader, has already endorsed the idea.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, shifted his position this week to a more referendum-friendly one. He now favors a confirmatory public vote on any prospective Brexit divorce deal, but is still stopping short of throwing his weight behind calls for a second in/out Brexit referendum.

In other Brexit-related news, Boris Johnson, the UK's former foreign secretary and a frontrunner in the race to replace Theresa May as prime minister, has been ordered to appear in court over claims he lied during campaigning ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

In a private prosecution launched by a man who crowd-funded 200,000 pounds in order to bring the case, Johnson's claim that the UK gave the EU 350 million pounds a week will be scrutinized. He faces a charge of misconduct in public office.