Brexit: Corbyn tells May it is ‘the end of the road’ for her deal if she suffers Commons defeat next week

Prime minister has not ruled out a third ‘meaningful vote' – but Labour leader insists: ’There can be no more playing for time’

Jeremy Corbyn has warned Theresa May not to make a third attempt to ram through her Brexit deal if it crashes to its expected defeat next week, saying it must be “the end of the road”.

The prime minister has not ruled out a third “meaningful vote” if MPs reject her agreement next week – even with the scheduled exit day from the EU just three weeks away.

But, speaking to Labour activists in Scotland, Mr Corbyn said Ms May must accept that defeat on Tuesday would “represent an unprecedented failure in British political history”.

“Having already failed once to get her deal through, I want to make it clear to the prime minister if she fails again it will be the end of the road for her deal,” the Labour leader said.

“There is no coming back from it. There can be no more playing for time.”

Mr Corbyn again insisted Labour’s softer Brexit proposals could secure agreement both at Westminster and in Brussels, following his “discussions with Michel Barnier” [the EU negotiator].

However, he also insisted Labour was not “obsessed” by Brexit like other parties – pointing to poverty and climate change as the issues that really matter.

“Turn on the news at the moment and you’ll hear endlessly about constitutional issues. Brexit. Independence. It borders on the obsessive,” he told a conference in Dundee.

“You don’t hear so much about the children arriving hungry to school or how the teachers at one nursery have had to arrange for Tesco and Greggs to donate their leftovers so they can feed the kids.”

On climate change, Mr Corbyn said: “Fundamentally the destruction of our climate is a class issue.

“It’s working class communities that suffer the worst pollution and the worst air quality. It’s working class people who will lose their jobs as resources run dry.

“And it’s working class people who will be left behind as the rich escape rising sea levels.”

Nevertheless, the dismissal of Brexit as for “obsessives” will alarm Labour MPs desperate for Mr Corbyn to swing indisputably behind the campaign for a Final Say referendum.

He made only a passing reference to backing “a public vote to prevent disaster”, while insisting: “We favour a general election. We’ll push for our alternative plan.”

The government is braced for another heavy defeat on Tuesday, having failed to win concessions from the EU to solve the Irish border controversy.

MPs have then been promised a vote to veto a no-deal Brexit and, after doing that, a vote to delay it by extending the Article 50 process beyond 29 March.

If the Commons rejects all options next week, it could leave space for the prime minister to have a third go at passing her deal – particularly if the alternative is a long delay imposed by Brussels.