LONDON (Reuters) -- Britain’s Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Monday Brexit could only be resolved by taking the issue back to the people, either at a new national election or a public vote.
"With the Conservatives disintegrating and unable to govern, and parliament deadlocked, this issue will have to go back to the people, whether through a general election or a public vote,” he said in a statement.
"We will not let the continuing chaos in the Conservative Party push our country into a no deal exit from the EU. Parliament can and will prevent such a damaging outcome for jobs and industry in the UK.”
Britain’s governing Conservative Party was all but wiped out in the European Parliament election as voters sick of the country’s stalled European Union exit flocked to uncompromisingly pro-Brexit or pro-EU parties.
The main opposition Labor Party also faced a drubbing in a vote that upended the traditional order of British politics and plunged the country into even more Brexit uncertainty. The big winners were the newly-founded Brexit Party led by veteran anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage and the strongly pro-European Liberal Democrats.
With results announced early Monday for all of England and Wales, the Brexit Party had won 28 of the 73 British EU seats up for grabs and almost a third of the votes. The Liberal Democrats took about 20% of the vote and 15 seats — up from only one at the last EU election in 2014.
Labor came third with 10 seats, followed by the Greens with seven. The ruling Conservatives were in fifth place with just three EU seats and under 10% of the vote.
Scotland and Northern Ireland were due to announce their results later.
Farage’s Brexit Party was one of several nationalist and populist parties making gains across the continent in an election that saw erosion of support for the traditionally dominant political parties.
Conservative Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was a "painful result” and warned there was an "existential risk to our party unless we now come together and get Brexit done.”
The results reflect an electorate deeply divided over Britain’s 2016 decision to leave the EU, but united in anger at the two long-dominant parties, the Conservatives and Labor, who have brought the Brexit process to deadlock.