LONDON: With less than three months until Britain leaves the European Union, activists in Labour’s industrial heartland, which voted heavily for Brexit, are demanding one thing from their leader Jeremy Corbyn: clarity.

The opposition leader on Thursday demanded a general election but refused again to reveal his own Brexit plans during a much-vaunted speech at components manufacturer EO Electrics in Wakefield, northern England.

The company is a symbol of industrial success in a region still scarred by decades of coal mine closures.

Corbyn said another election and a Labour government was the only path to reconciliation for a country that is still deeply divided on the issue of Brexit, but those in attendance were hoping to hear more concrete promises.

“I appreciate he has come to Yorkshire, the north of England being usually the poor half of the UK, but my overriding impression is lack of clarity,” said employee Mark Sutcliffe.

“I would have expected this speech two years ago, not with two, three months to go. It is all too late now,” he added.

It is a sentiment shared by the handful of Labour activists who came to hear the party leader, who is struggling to reconcile his own long-term euroscepticism and that of many of the party’s traditional voters with the pro-EU feelings of many of his MPs and young supporters.

“I want him to support the people’s vote… because most of the Labour Party members… want to remain,” said retired teacher Lynne Stainthorpe, 66.

“He talks about wanting a general election first, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” added Stainthorpe, who was wrapped in a European flag.

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