Corbyn insists he can be PM but polls predict vote disaster
JEREMY CORBYN has insisted he can be the next prime minister despite opinion polls indicating that Labour faces an electoral mauling on June 8.
The Labour leader said he wants to lead a government to “transform this country”, ending austerity and tackling inequality.
But in order to do so he will have to defy opinion polls which have put his party a clear distance behind the Tories, and secure more seats than Ed Miliband managed in 2015.
And he will have to do that while at the helm of a party still deeply split in Westminster about his leadership, with some MPs preferring to quit rather than face an election.
The latest Press Association analysis of opinion polls put the Tories on 43 per cent, a 17-point lead over Labour’s 26 per cent.
Given that Labour secured 99 fewer seats than the Tories in 2015, when the polls were much closer, the scale of the challenge facing Mr Corbyn is clear.
His support for Theresa May’s early election means he could be less than two months away from entering Number 10 – or leading his party to electoral disaster.
Asked if he was the next prime minister, Mr Corbyn said: “If we win the election, yes. And I want to lead a government that will transform this country, give real hope to everybody and above all bring about a principle of justice for everybody and economic opportunities for everybody.”
Challenged on whether he would quit if the party failed to win, he said: “We are campaigning to win this election, that’s the only question now.”
In a sign of the discontent within the Labour ranks, Tom Blenkinsop immediately said he would not stand for re-election.
The MP criticised the leader last week after Labour lost a Middlesbrough council seat to the Tories on a by-election swing of eight per cent. He said: “I have made no secret about my significant and irreconcilable differences with the current Labour leadership. It is because of these differences I feel I cannot in good faith stand as the Labour candidate for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.”
Labour’s election campaign cochair Andrew Gwynne said members “absolutely are ready” for the snap poll, which they had been planning for ever since Mrs May took office.
A manifesto will be agreed by the National Executive Committee “in the next few weeks”, he said.
Mr Gwynne told BBC Radio 4’s PM that the election was “all to play for”, adding: “I think we will win.
“We will fight to win. I have every confidence that we will fight the campaign in the best possible way that we can and we aim to form a government.”