The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) today hailed the ‘massive vote of no confidence’ in the Tory government expressed by Thursday’s EU vote and called for the labour and trade union movement to follow this up by demanding an immediate general election.

TUSC, which has been the sixth-biggest presence on ballot papers in elections for the last four years, campaigned for a leave vote in yesterday’s poll.

Dave Nellist, the former Labour MP who is now the chair of TUSC, said: “TUSC opposes the EU as an ‘Employers Union’, implementing Thatcherism on a continental scale, and we welcome the decisive rejection of it in the referendum.

“This was a revolt against a system that is not delivering for the majority of working class people and many middle class people too.

“But Britain’s political and economic establishment no more defends the interests of the majority than the EU does and the vote for change that was expressed in Thursday’s poll will not be met by replacing one ex-Eton schoolboy with another.

“The labour and trade union movement must follow up this massive vote of no confidence in the Tory government and demand a general election now.

“We also support Jeremy Corbyn’s renewed commitment to oppose a post-referendum emergency budget which includes any new austerity measures and call for the removal from the Labour benches of any so-called ‘Labour MP’ who votes otherwise”.