Corbyn takes Labour as low in the polls as Michael Foot
JEREMY CORBYN’S Labour is now as far behind the Conservatives as when his predecessor Michael Foot lost by a landslide to Margaret Thatcher, according to a poll.
Just 27 per cent of voters would back Labour at an election while 43 per cent would support the Tories, the pollster ICM found.
The findings will increase comparisons between Mr Corbyn and Mr Foot, a Left-winger whose election manifesto was memorably dubbed the “longest suicide note in history”.
It will also lead to calls for Mrs May to reverse her position and support an early election, with experts suggesting she would win a 100-seat majority on current polling.
A separate poll also suggested that more than two and a half million people who voted Labour in the 2015 election now believe Theresa May would make a better prime minister than Jeremy Corbyn. In the YouGov survey for The Times, 29 per cent percent of Labour voters preferred Mrs May.
The news emerged as a dispute about Labour’s leadership rules made the High Court as a Labour donor attempted to overturn the decision to allow Mr Corbyn onto the leadership ballot paper automatically.
Mr Corbyn’s lawyers insisted he did not need to get the backing of 51 MPs and MEPs to rerun for the leadership but said he should be given 48 hours to get the signatures if the judge rules against him. A decision is expected later this week.
Labour is currently locked in a leadership battle as Owen Smith, the former shadow work and pensions secretary, attempts to unseat Mr Corbyn after around 75 per cent of the party’s MPs said they have no confidence in him.
Central to Mr Smith’s argument is that Mr Corbyn can never win office, while the Labour leader dismisses claims he is unelectable by pointing to victories in by-elections.
Research conducted for ICM between July 22 and 24 put the Tories up four points on 43 per cent of the vote and Labour down to 27 per cent – a lead for the Conservative of 16 points.
The situation is also almost identical to when Mrs Thatcher achieved her reelection landslide in 1983, when the Tories won 42.4 per cent of votes and Labour received 27.6 per cent.