Sunday 07 October 2018 8:20 pm | Updated: Tuesday 21 May 2019 4:24 pm

Theresa May urges Labour voters to ‘look beyond’ party labels and back her plan for post-Brexit Britain

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Theresa May has launched a bid to woo disgruntled Labour voters, asking them to "look at her party afresh" and "beyond party labels".

Writing in the Observer yesterday, May said she wanted the Conservatives to be a party "for the whole country" and that the Tories were capable of going beyond criticising the opposition.

"To be that party for the whole country, Conservatives must do more than demonstrate the flaws of Corbynism. We need to offer a positive and optimistic vision of the better future that our policies will deliver," she said.

At her speech closing the Conservative party conference last week the prime minister heralded a new era for Britain and an end to austerity, saying "there are better days ahead".

"Debt as a share of the economy will continue to go down, support for public services will go up because, a decade after the financial crash, people need to know that the austerity it led to is over and that their hard work has paid off," she said.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said May's claim that austerity was over was a "cynical con", while Labour party chair Ian Lavery said May's article showed the the prime minister was "clearly spooked".

May's pitch to Labour voters comes as she tries to win over the EU at a crucial summit later this month, which has been seen as a deadline for settling the so-called withdrawal agreement – the terms on which the UK will leave the EU – as well as a political declaration on the future relationship between the two sides.

The EU has already signalled it will reject May's blueprint for a Brexit deal – the so-called Chequers proposal – on the grounds it "undermines" the integrity of the Single Market.

On Wednesday, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier will present the bloc's first draft of EU proposals for a trade relationship to the EU's executive European Commission.

Yesterday Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney told Sky News he thought there was a good chance of the two sides agreeing a withdrawal treaty and that talks on a deal are near 90 per cent complete.

“I think the chances are good, because I think the consequences of not getting a withdrawal treaty agreed are very very negative indeed for the UK, also for Ireland and indeed for many countries in the EU," he said.

Meanwhile, the Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon said her party, the SNP, would back another Brexit referendum. She said her MPs would oppose a deal that did not guarantee remaining in the Single Market and customs union.

Sturgeon told the BBC MPs should come together to avoid a "fire or frying pan" situation.

"No doubt calls for a second referendum would grow in those circumstances, and I've said before we wouldn't stand in the way of a second referendum. I think SNP MPs would undoubtedly vote for that proposition," she said.