Cross-party Brexit talks between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have collapsed, it has been confirmed today.
The Labour leader told the PM that negotiations have “gone as far as they can” and “we have been unable to bridge important policy gaps between us”.
He also pointed to the unstable leadership of the Conservative Party, saying as a leadership contest kicks off “the position of the government has become ever more unstable and its authority eroded”.
It comes after Hilary Benn, chairman of the Brexit Select Committee, told the Today Programme that there would be little point in continuing the talks with the Tories if they were going nowhere.
He said: “It doesn’t come as a great surprise to me because over the six weeks they’ve been going it doesn’t appear that much progress has been made.
“If there’s not going to be any progress then there wouldn’t be much point in carrying on.”
Benn said a Brexit referendum is now more likely, saying: “There are only two ways out of the Brexit crisis that we’ve got: either parliament agrees a deal or we go back to the British people and ask them to make the choice.”