LONDON: Britain’s opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn would push ahead with Brexit and seek to renegotiate the terms if he won a snap election next year, he said on Saturday, in a blow to party supporters who want a second referendum.
Like much of Britain, Corbyn’s Labour party is deeply divided over Brexit, with some senior lawmakers leading calls for a fresh vote and others representing areas that recorded the highest support for leaving the European Union in the 2016 plebiscite.
Corbyn, a Socialist with little passion for the EU, has been reluctant to support a second referendum, or People’s Vote, but with less than 100 days to go until Brexit the clamour is growing for either a delay or a second vote to prevent Britain leaving without a deal.
“You’d have to go back and negotiate, and see what the timetable would be,” the 69-year-old told the Guardian newspaper, when asked what he would do if he won an early election designed to break the deadlock in parliament.
Asked what stance Labour would take if a referendum were held, Corbyn said: “it would be a matter for the party to decide what the policy would be; but my proposal at this moment is that we go forward, trying to get a customs union with the EU, in which we would be able to be proper trading partners.”
Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a withdrawal agreement with Brussels but was forced to pull a parliamentary vote on it last week after admitting she would lose by a large margin.
A new election is not due until 2022 but one could be called if May fails to get her primary policy through parliament.
Labour wants a permanent customs union with the EU and a close relationship with its lucrative single market. The policy has been dubbed “constructive ambiguity” by some, who question whether Labour could negotiate a better deal.
Critics argue that Corbyn has been happy to go along with the policy as long as the vote to leave the bloc is respected.
He told the Guardian he still had concerns about EU rules on state aid, and that he had to balance the views of all those in the party and understand why so many voted to leave the world’s biggest trading bloc.
He said his plan for a customs union with the EU, to protect trade and access to the market, was designed to do just that.
A renegotiated Brexit would go ahead under Labour government: Corbyn
A renegotiated Brexit would go ahead under Labour government: Corbyn
- Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29
- A new election is not due until 2022 but one could be called if May fails to get her primary policy through parliament
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
