Snarling Corbyn f lies off the handle in TV grilling
Labour leader snaps on camera when questioned if he’ll keep his job until 2020
Jeremy Corbyn snapped angrily yesterday when asked whether he can cling on until the next general election.
The pressure looked to be taking its toll on the beleaguered Labour leader after 72 hours spent facing relentless criticism over the party’s dis- astrous defeat at the hands of the Conservatives in the Copeland by-election.
Mr Corbyn finally admitted yesterday that he bore a ‘share of responsibility’ for the fiasco which resulted in Theresa May becoming the first prime minister for 35 years to make a by-election gain from the official opposition.
But in an interview with Sky News, cameras caught him round- ing angrily on reporters questioning whether he could cling on. He twice ducked questions about whether he could keep his job until 2020, before finally snarling: ‘I’ve given you a very, very clear answer – yes.’ Speaking at the Scottish Labour conference in Perth, he pleaded with his party not to ‘give up’, saying Labour was ‘needed more than ever’.
Mr Corbyn insisted that his socialist agenda, which includes borrowing an extra £500billion, was a programme ‘whose time has come’.
‘Now is not the time to retreat, to run away or give up,’ he said. ‘Comrades, let us never forget it’s not called the struggle for nothing.’
Mr Corbyn insisted Labour could still go on to win the next election, provided it ‘united’ behind him.
But a Comres poll for the Sunday Mirror yesterday suggested more than a third of Labour voters believe he should now be replaced.
Among non-Labour voters, 77 per cent think Labour has the wrong leader, and 71 per cent believe the party has lost touch with working class voters. But Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson yesterday insisted that sticking with Mr Corbyn was ‘not a suicide approach’.
He said Labour could not contemplate a third leadership contest in less than two years. ‘We can win an election with Jeremy Corbyn, but things have to change,’ he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday show.
Mr Watson said the Labour leader, who he tried to oust last year, had to demonstrate ‘greater policy coherence and greater clarity in explaining what our mission is’.
Scottish Labour Leader Kezia Dugdale warned: ‘We’ve got to listen very hard to the message that voters are sending to us.’
But Labour’s international trade spokesman Barry Gardiner said it would be ‘insane’ to jettison Mr Corbyn. ‘ The thing that would please the Conservative party more than anything else is if the Labour party went to yet another leadership election,’ he said.
Meanwhile Conservative Party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin confirmed that the Tories would launch a fresh offensive to attract Labour votes in the wake of the Copeland result.
Mr Watson last night also defended taking £500,000 in donations from former F1 tycoon Max Mosley, saying: ‘I could never be bought’ on ITV’s Peston on Sunday. Mr Mosley also bankrolls the press regulator Impress.
‘Now is not the time to retreat ’