YESTERDAY’S Northern Echo featured a letter from a group of six North-East Labour MPs calling for a People’s Vote on the Brexit deal that is eventually agreed between the Government and the European Union.

In the same edition of the newspaper, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn effectively ruled out supporting such a vote when he was interviewed in Saltburn. “The referendum took place,” was Mr Corbyn’s curt response to suggestions of a second vote.

Since the result of the Brexit vote was announced in June 2016, much attention has rightly been focused on the splits within the Conservative party. At a time when the United Kingdom desperately needs strong, united leadership, far too many Conservative MPs have been putting their own narrow political ambitions ahead of the national interest.

That is unforgivable. But it is equally unacceptable that the Labour party, supposedly the voice of opposition, has also been unable to formulate a Brexit policy of its own.

A majority of The Northern Echo’s readers are served by a Labour MP, yet with the date of the UK’s proposed withdrawal from the EU now less than five months away, it is still impossible to say with any certainty what the Labour party actually wants.

Are the six MPs who published yesterday’s letter speaking for the majority of their Parliamentary colleagues? Or is Mr Corbyn expressing Labour’s view when he rules out a People’s Vote and asserts that the British public have already spoken?