SCOTTISH LABOUR will campaign for a second referendum and to stay in the EU, the party’s leader Richard Leonard announced at the weekend.

After Labour’s poor showing north of the border in the recent European Parliament elections, Mr Leonard said the party’s position on Brexit was “much more nuanced and difficult to promote to voters on the doorstep” than those of other parties.

Speaking at transport union TSSA’s annual conference in Glasgow on Saturday, he said: “That is why I have immediately reviewed Scottish Labour’s stance on Brexit and confirmed  that we will support a confirmatory vote on whatever deal is brought forward. That vote must also give people the option of Remain on the ballot paper.

“And today I am happy to report that the Labour Party’s Scottish executive has backed me.

“I also confirmed that I will campaign hard for a Remain option ahead of any public vote. And today I can confirm that the Scottish Labour Party will campaign hard for a Remain option ahead of any public vote.”

Mr Leonard argued that “the total votes for parties standing on a pro-Remain platform outweighed the votes of Farage’s party,” saying this meant there was “no majority for a no-deal Brexit.”

But he warned that “the rise of the Brexit Party will push the next Tory leader, and the official position of the Tory Party, ever closer to a position of no deal.”

He said Labour’s victory in the Peterborough by-election, in which leftwinger Lisa Forbes saw off Mr Farage’s candidate showed “that there is still support, right across the UK,  for Labour’s programme for investing in our communities.”

The SNP easily took first place ahead of the Brexit Party in Scotland, but Mr Leonard said it “would also be wrong of the SNP to attribute their increased vote share in the Euro elections as a green light that a further independence referendum is acceded to, let alone demanded by voters.”

Despite repeatedly calling on Labour to support a second referendum and remain in the EU, the separatist party said Mr Leonard’s announcement was “grossly hypocritical.”

SNP deputy leader Keith Brown said: “It is clear that Labour’s prevaricating has had a disastrous impact on the party and this long overdue decision will not change that.”