A leading member of the Conservative government has criticised Jeremy Corbyn for claiming that he would be “neutral” on Brexit in a Labour-proposed second referendum.

The Labour leader made the remarks during Friday night’s leadership debate on a special of the BBC’s Question Time programme.

Mr Corbyn pledged in his election manifesto to hold a referendum where Remain would be put up against a renegotiated, soft Brexit deal — with no credible Leave option.

He told the audience: “My role, and the role of our government, will be to ensure that referendum is held in a fair atmosphere and we will abide by the result of it.

“And I will adopt, as prime minister if I am at the time, a neutral stance so that I can credibly carry out the results of that to bring our communities and country together, rather than continuing an endless debate about the EU and Brexit.

“This will be a trade deal with Europe or remaining in the EU — that will be the choice we put before the British people within six months.”

Health secretary Matt Hancock called this position “extraordinary”, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday: “He’s decided to be indecisive, he’s acted for inaction. This position of neutrality will not wash and won’t wash with the voters. I’ve been in 71 constituencies so far; there’s no way that this neutrality argument from Corbyn is going to work.”

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage also criticised the far-left Labour leader, saying: “Corbyn wants to be neutral in his second referendum. That is not leadership, and it is not respecting democracy.”

Mr Farage launched his own party pledges on Friday, ditching the term “manifesto” in favour of a “contract with the British people” after mainstream parties had made high-profile promises in their manifestos only to renege on them at a later date. Notably, the Tories had pledged to reduce immigration to the “tens of thousands” which George Osborne admitted the government never intended to deliver and Corbyn promised in 2017 to respect the referendum vote, only to announce plans in the 2019 manifesto to hold a second referendum.

During the Brexit Party contract launch, Mr Farage said: “This is not a manifesto because a word association test with manifesto gave us the word ‘lie’! And is that surprising given how many broken promises we’ve seen in British politics over the last few general elections?

“No, manifestos are a means of telling people what they want to hear without ever having the genuine desire to implement them.”