‘We are the workers’ party now’
Tories’ victory shows Labour is out of touch, says May as supporters call for snap election
THERESA MAY declared the Conservatives “truly the party of working people” as she hailed the Copeland by-election victory the best by a governing party since 1878.
In a private address to Tory councillors, the Prime Minister said Labour’s abject showing in the Cumbrian poll and its haemorrhaging of votes in the Stoke-on-Trent Central election was a “devastating blow” for Jeremy Corbyn’s party.
Mrs May said it proved that the Opposition was “out of touch” with the concerns of voters in what were formerly Labour heartlands.
Speaking after the first by-election gain for a ruling party in a generation, Mrs May told Conservative activists they should celebrate the “astounding” victory “and all it represents”.
Senior Tories said the results of Thursday’s two by-elections could hardly have been better for the party. On top of the victory in Copeland, which had been held by Labour since 1935, the Ukip leader Paul Nuttall failed to break through in Stoke, which Labour held with a much-reduced majority.
Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, Ukip’s former leader, Nigel Farage, said his party now needed “radical reform” and must “own the immigration issue” if it was to make electoral gains.
Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn’s authority as Labour leader reached a new low as members of his shadow cabinet said the party faced an “existential crisis” and his union backers blamed him for the “disastrous” results.
In Copeland, a 2,564 majority in the 2015 general election was turned into a 2,147 majority for the Conservatives, while in Stoke Labour’s majority from 5,179 to 2,620.
Mr Corbyn said he would not be stepping down, as he was forced to deny that he had become “the problem” or “Theresa May’s best friend” as he and his team blamed everything from Tony Blair to the weather for losing Copeland.
The Labour leadership was accused of being “delusional” after Mr Corbyn described the Stoke result as a “wonderful victory” and his campaign chief Ian Lavery claimed that Mr Corbyn was “one of the most popular politicians in the country”.
Pollsters said the Tories’ results in Copeland and Stoke would translate to a landslide 96-seat majority in the Commons if they were repeated in a general election.
Some of Mrs May’s own Cabinet ministers have privately said they want her to “get on with” a snap election, while grassroots Tories also expressed their enthusiasm for a poll that could cut Labour to the bone.
Sources close to the Prime Minister, however, made it clear that she believes a general election would delay Brexit and is not in the national interest, as it
would lead to a period of uncertainty, even if it did ultimately benefit the Tories.
Mrs May travelled to Copeland yesterday to celebrate with the victorious Conservative candidate Trudy Harrison, where she told activists “this is an astounding victory for the Conservative Party” which, she said, showed “that this truly is a Government that is working for everyone and for every part of the country”.
She later attended the Conservative Councillors’ Association conference in Lincolnshire and told Tories preparing for May’s local elections: “Let us not be in any doubt about what these results represent. Copeland is a seat that Labour describe as their ‘core vote country’. It has returned Labour MPs without exception since the 1930s. It is a seat they thought they would win this time. A seat where they expected to increase their majority.
“And it is true to say that the result is a devastating blow for them, and proof that Labour are out of touch with the concerns of ordinary working people.”
She went on: “That is why today, it is this party – and only this party – that can truly call itself the party of working people. A party determined to build a country that works for everyone, and not just a privileged few.”
Mrs May’s bold rhetoric showed that she believes she has delivered on a promise to be “driven by the interests of ordinary, working class people”.