Tories take four-point poll lead over Labour
... but ex-minister warns Chequers plan could still cost PM the next election
ThE Tories have taken a lead over Labour in the polls despite both being engulfed in internal splits.
Theresa May’s party now has a four-point lead, according to the latest YouGov poll for The Times, suggesting that the row over anti-Semitism has hit Jeremy Corbyn.
The survey will be welcomed by the Prime Minister, amid concerns the row over her negotiating position with the EU could dent her position.
Yesterday former Cabinet minister Priti Patel launched a scathing attack on Mrs May’s Brexit plans, warning they could cost the Tories the next election.
The leading Brexiteer said the Chequers plan would leave the UK being run ‘by remote control’ from Brussels.
And she warned that Brexitbacking voters will not forgive the Tories for betraying them and will desert the party, costing the Conservatives crucial seats in the north.
The poll comes in a week during which the Conservative Party has struggled to deal with tensions over Boris Johnson’s comments on the burka and wider allegations of Islamophobia in the party.
In a major shift from last week when both parties were level, 39 per cent said they would vote Conservative compared to 35 per cent for Labour, down four points.
It is Labour’s lowest overall score in voting intention since last year’s general election. And in a further blow for Mr Corbyn, he received his lowest rating ever on the question of who would make the best prime minister.
Mrs May has extended her lead on the question by 14 points over Mr Corbyn – a seven-point increase from the last study.
Some 36 per cent said they would choose Mrs May for No 10, up four points, while 22 per cent would choose Mr Corbyn, down three points. A total of 39 per cent said they did not know.
Elsewhere, 45 per cent said leaving the EU is the wrong thing to do, while 42 per cent said Britain should press on. Miss Patel’s outspoken intervention comes amid a Tory grassroots revolt over the Brexit compromise plan, which was set out last month.
Under the proposal, the UK would agree to stick to EU rules on goods in a move Mrs May says will safeguard jobs and manufacturing.
But Brexiteers are furious at the plans which they say will mean Britain will have to continue to swallow EU rules and would stop the country from being able to sign trade deals with other countries.
It triggered the resignations of David Davis as Brexit Secretary and Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, and reignited talk Mrs May could face a leadership challenge.
In The Sun, Miss Patel, the former International Development Secretary, urged the Prime Minister to ditch her plan. She wrote: ‘Our laws and courts will not be supreme.’
WHAT truly bizarre political times we live in. After a deeply depressing week for the Tories, during which they appeared so riven by acrimony and division as to be on the brink of civil war, a new opinion poll shows they have opened up a four-point lead over Labour.
Just imagine what that lead might be if they could muster even a semblance of unity and common purpose.
By normal standards of course, Labour should be at least 20 points ahead today. The voters despise nothing more than a party that puts internal bickering before good governance – and that is precisely what the Tories have been doing.
Most recently, the concocted row over Boris Johnson and comments he made about the burka has been allowed to spiral so far out of proportion that it now seriously threatens to split the party.
This is an entirely self-inflicted wound – and it makes the Conservatives look weak and incompetent.
But they can thank their stars that Labour is led by an unreconstructed Marxist with a class-war mindset, lunatic economic policies and a highly dubious track record of consorting with terrorists and anti-Semites.
Just today, the Mail publishes photographs of Jeremy Corbyn on a visit to Tunisia, at the graves of Palestinian fanatics who masterminded the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and officials at the Munich Olympics in 1972. His obeisance to such pitiless killers is beyond offensive.
This man is palpably unfit to lead Labour – let alone the country.
But the Tories won’t win the next election merely by default. They must show they are the natural party of government, and that means delivering a clean Brexit.
Fortunately, the tide seems to be going their way. Having been the unyielding face of Brussels intransigence for so long, even chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is now under pressure to soften his tone.
Faced with the increasingly real prospect of no deal, which would be a disaster for German carmakers, Irish farmers and French winemakers, member states have hinted the EU may be prepared to ditch one of its deepest red lines – that of free movement.
They are effectively telling Mr Barnier to stop stonewalling and finally start negotiating. How much more cooperation might Britain get if we show more defiance and stick to Theresa May’s original mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal?
For while much of the eurozone remains mired in economic stagnation and recent figures show even German manufacturing in decline, Britain continues to defy all of Project Fear’s dire predictions.
Employment is at a record high, exports are booming and data released yesterday shows that economic growth rebounded strongly in the second quarter of this year – outpacing the eurozone once again.
Britain is in sound economic health and though a no- deal scenario would undoubtedly bring short-term difficulties, we should not fear it. For the EU it would be far worse.
But of course, our chances of a good deal will be hugely weakened if the Government continues fighting with itself. It’s in the overwhelming national interest that ministers and MPs alike unite behind the pledges of the Tory manifesto – out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union, but committed to a free trade deal.
They can’t rely on Labour’s unelectability alone. They must prove to the country they are worthy of office.
If they need inspiration, they should recall these words from Margaret Thatcher’s last conference speech before winning the first of her three elections. ‘We want to be elected so that we can do better, not because we could not possibly do worse.’