Tories step up attack on Corbyn as Labour makes gains in the polls
THE Conservatives hve launched a renewed onslaught on Jeremy Corbyn, amid signs that Labour is gaining ground in the opinion polls.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the Labour leader could not be trusted to lead the Brexit talks if he gained power in the General Election on June 8, warning EU negotiators would “have him for breakfast”.
His attack came as Mr Corbyn came under pressure over his past involvement with rallies associated with the IRA as well as Labour’s policy on immigration.
However, ministers also found themselves forced onto the defensive over the Conservatives’ plans to overhaul funding of social care which would for the first time see thousands of elderly people required to pay for the cost of being looked after in their own homes.
Following the launch last week of the main party manifestos, four polls for the Sunday newspapers put Labour between 35% and 33%, up significantly on the scores as low as 26% it was recording early in the campaign.
The Tory advantage was narrowed to just nine points in one survey by YouGov for the Sunday Times – the first time it has been in single figures in a mainstream poll since Theresa May called the snap election on April 18 – prompting talk of a “wobble weekend” for the Conservatives.
Although the figures would deliver a comfortable Tory majority if repeated on June 8, they will bolster Labour insiders’ belief that Mr Corbyn’s campaign is making inroads into the Conservative support.
Ministers said the findings would focus voters’ minds on the prospect that Mr Corbyn could be leading the Brexit talks, due to start less than two weeks after election day, underlining the nature of the choice facing them at the ballot box.
Mr Johnson told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “We are at a critical phase in the history of this country. We have to get Brexit right. I am genuinely alarmed by the idea that it could be handled in just 11 days after the election by Jeremy Corbyn.
“I do not for the life of me understand how he is supposed to go and sit at that table in Brussels on day one of the talks when he hasn’t got a clue whether he wants to stay in the single market or the customs union and he has a completely unintelligible position on immigration.
“They are going to look at him and have him for breakfast. It think it will be deeply damaging to the interests of this country.”
Mr Corbyn, appearing on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, faced repeated questions over whether he condemned the IRA.
The Labour leader, who has been criticised for his involvement with the Troops Out campaign in the 1980s at the height of the IRA’s terror campaign, said he condemned “all bombing” but that he had wanted to find a way of opening up a peace process.
“In the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution in Ireland. It clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British army at that time,” he said.
“Therefore, you have to seek a peace process. You condemn the violence of those that laid bombs that killed large of numbers of innocent people and I do.”
Pressed to condemn the IRA, Mr Corbyn said: “I’ve just condemned all those that did bombing, all those, all those on both sides that laid bombs.”
Asked again to condemn the IRA without equating it to the deaths caused by British security services, Mr Corbyn said: “And there were loyalist bombs as well, which you haven’t mentioned. I condemn all the bombing by the both loyalists and the IRA.”
Security minister Ben Wallace, a former army officer who served in Northern Ireland, said: “People up and down the country will rightly be outraged that Jeremy Corbyn won’t unequivocally condemn the IRA for the bloodshed, bombs and brutal murders they inflicted on a generation of innocent people.
“Jeremy Corbyn has spent a lifetime siding with Britain’s enemies, but he and his extreme views could
be leading our country and representing it abroad – negotiating with 27 EU countries in just over two weeks’ time.
“And it’s the British people who will pay for this for generations.”
On immigration, Mr Corbyn said Labour was committed to a “fair” policy which met the needs of society, but refused to be drawn on the numbers.
The Labour leader said that if he gained power in the General Election on June 8 he would put in place a migration policy based on the needs of society.
“Freedom of movement obviously ends when you leave the European Union because it’s a condition of the membership,” he told Sophy Ridge.
He added: “I want there to be fair immigration based on the needs of our society.
“That is the proper way of approaching it.”
Pressed further on the issue, Mr Corbyn went on: “I want us to have a society that works and I cannot get into a numbers game because I don’t think it works.”
Asked again on whether he wanted immigration numbers to increase or decrease, Mr Corbyn replied: “What I want is a society that works and what I want is fair migration.
“It’ll probably be lower but I don’t want to start making predictions on that because the issue has to be the needs of our economy.
“If we can’t recruit the nurses we need and we ask nurses to come and work here from abroad, if we can’t recruit the engineers because the Conservative Government hasn’t invested in training for so long, then we have to do something about it.”
Mr Johnson, meanwhile, defended the Conservatives’ plans to overhaul social care, saying that with the number of over-75s set to increase by two million over the next 10 years, they had to address the “huge costs” involved.
“I think it is a mark of Theresa May’s bravery and candour with electorate that she is doing this.
“It shows the strength and purpose she will bring to everything she does if we are re-elected,” he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday.