Corbyn claims Tories ‘no longer the party of rural life’

JEREMY CORBYN is to claim that the Conservatives are no longer the party of farmers and rural communities, in an indication of the general election campaign he would fight against Boris Johnson.

The Labour leader will today declare that the Tories’ willingness to take the UK out of the EU without an agreement paves the way for “devastation” of the agricultural sector, comparable to Margaret Thatcher’s coal mine closures in the Eighties.

Mr Corbyn’s remarks indicate the pitch he would make to voters in the event that Jeremy Hunt or Mr Johnson, who is expected to win the Tory leadership contest, have to fight a general election campaign to gain a Commons majority for a no-deal exit from the EU.

“A Conservative government taking us off the cliff edge of a no-deal Brexit would be a direct attack on rural communities, which could cause devastation on the same scale as the Thatcher government’s attack on mining communities in the 1980s,” Mr Corbyn is expected to say at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival today.

“The Conservative Party has pitched itself as the party of farming and rural communities, but pursuing a reckless No Deal shows the lie to this.

“No Deal would devastate our agricultural sector, destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, and see us reduced to eating chlorinated chicken from the US.” Earlier this month Mr Corbyn called for a second referendum to decide on the terms of Brexit, saying that Labour would campaign for Remain.

Gloria De Piero, a shadow minister who represents the Leave-voting constituency of Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, quit his front bench as she issued a warning about the Labour Party’s “lack of tolerance”.