We can win in Southport, Corbyn tells party faithful
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn says he is confident the party can claim Southport to complete a clean sweep of Merseyside in the next general election.
Southport stood out as the only Conservative win in the county in 2017, with Labour rising from third to second place ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Corbyn visited the town for a round-table discussion with business owners and a rally of party members on Tuesday, where he promised funds would be made available for local investments under a Labour government.
The round-table meeting was held at Remedy gin bar on Lord Street with Liverpool City Region Metro
Mayor Steve Rotheram and Southport Labour Parliamentary hopeful Liz Savage and business leaders including Pleasureland boss Norman Wallis explained some of the issues facing the town.
One of the major problems raised was connectivity, as the resort suffers from poor rail links to Manchester and none direct to Preston or Ormskirk.
The lack of an express between Southport and Liverpool was also discussed, as was the possibility of reopening the Burscough Curves.
Mr Corbyn said: “This is why regional transformation funds will be there for local determination of local investment.
“It’s no good someone sitting in Whitehall deciding whether there should be a passing loop on the track to Liverpool or not. They wouldn’t know where it is, they can’t know the whole country and why should they?
“It’s much better if you have a strategy where there’s local determination of this so Steve, for example, would push for an upgrade of the rail lines. It’s not that difficult and can be done.
“Two passing loops would mean you get the speedier trains you require.”
Another issue raised by Mr Wallis, who also spoke of his belief that Southport could – and should – be a major UK destination, was the lack of skilled workers, a problem Mr Rotheram said could be solved under Labour’s idea of devolving budgets.
He said: “I’m bringing electronics engineers in from the North East because we don’t have the people in this area to do it. We need to train the people in this area to do the things we need. We need to build the things here, the staff, the training so they can go away, learn more skills and give it back to the area.”
Speaking to the Visiter, Mr Corbyn said he remained confident than Labour could win in Southport in the next general election, throwing his support behind Liz Savage.
He said: “The last election result was good for us – but not quite good enough. We didn’t win but came from third at one stage to a very close second last time.
“Liz has been selected as our candidate again, she’s very popular locally, very hard working and very committed and I am very confident in our message about investment – rail and transport investment as well as small businesses – about social care, about inequality and the green industrial revolution.
“I’m very confident that we can gain support in Southport.”
Ms Savage said: “I’ve always said that what we need here is a Labour MP who can work with the Labour-run Sefton council and can work with the Labour city region to ensure that we get everything that we need here in Southport.
“We can get that investment by working together but when you end up with people who just criticise the Labour council or criticise the mayor it makes it very difficult to bring that funding in.
“We’ve got to be more positive and make sure that everything that is said about Southport is positive and move forward on that because we’re not going to get the visitors and tourism if what we’re always saying is ‘oh don’t come to Southport’ – which is what people have effectively been saying for years.”