Shock poll puts hard Left MP ahead in leader race
LABOUR was facing up to a leadership nightmare last night after surveys showed hard- Left MP Jeremy Corbyn was on course for victory.
Private polling suggested he is now in a ‘commanding position’ and that he could storm to first place by a margin of up to 15 points in the first round of voting. Last night bookmakers dramatically slashed odds of him winning to 5-1. When he entered the race they were 100-1.
Rattled rival campaigns warned that a Corbyn victory would see Labour revert to a ‘ 1980s-style wilderness’ when it lost heavily under the leadership of Michael Foot.
Toby Perkins, manager for Blairite candidate Liz Kendall’s bid, said the leadership race was now a ‘ straight choice’ between her and a ‘ wilderness’ with Mr Corbyn.
And one party source last night said that Labour had entered ‘f***eroo territory’.
Insiders believe the poll lead, reported by the New Statesman magazine, is largely down to an influx of new, younger party members throwing their weight behind the veteran socialist.
Mr Corbyn is also benefiting from trade union support after he was formally backed by Unite.
The New Statesman said that internal polls carried out by two separate leadership campaigns show the 66-year- old could do much better than expected. Mr Corbyn has already collected 40 nominations from local parties, just eight behind frontrunner Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has 30, while Miss Kendall, the most centrist candidate who observers see as the best hope of winning over wavering Tory voters, is trailing in fourth place with only five.
A victory for Mr Corbyn could spark a damaging split in Labour, with a repeat of the events of 1981 when MPs on the Right of the party set up the SDP.
The surge comes despite the launch of a ‘Stop Jeremy Corbyn’ campaign by a Labour elite worried he would lead the party to oblivion. Senior figures have been pressurising local branches not to declare their support for him.
The New Statesman reported that the polling indicates that Labour’s preferential voting system – used both for the final contest and to nominate by local parties – is masking Mr Corbyn’s strength in the first round. One survey has him ahead by more than 15 points.
Another puts him in what one campaign staffer called ‘a commanding position’, adding: ‘He is on course to win’. The magazine wrote: ‘It appears as if the Islington North MP’s strength is largely coming from new and younger members.
One constituency chairman believes that “more than two thirds” of new recruits since the election are supporters of Corbyn, a finding mirrored by the leadership campaign’s experience of phoning new members.
‘ It also appears as if many members from the Right have abandoned the party during the years of Ed Miliband, being replaced by what one staffer describes as “true believers”.’
The magazine said there was now talk of persuading respected grandees from the Miliband era and the party’s ‘soft Left’ to come out against a Corbyn victory to prevent the worst happening.
The report added: ‘ But given the hostile response to Harriet Harman’s coded warning to “think not who you like and who makes you feel comfortable – think who actually will be able to reach out to the public and actually listen to the public and give them confidence”, interpreted as an “anyone but Corbyn” call, that may prove ineffective.’
Mr Corbyn has pledged to ‘change significantly the direction of the party’ and wants the introduction of a Soviet- style ‘planned economy’.
He believes Labour lost the election because it offered voters ‘ austerity-light’ rather than full- blooded opposition to spending cuts.
‘Support from younger members’