Watson says it will be ‘very, very difficult’ to turn around the polls
Party’s admission of defeat
LABOUR DEPUTY leader Tom Watson has admitted the party has a “mountain to climb” if it is avoid a landslide Conservative victory.
Mr Watson urged traditional Labour supporters to back the party on June 8 to avoid a “Margaret Thatcher-style majority”.
Under Baroness Thatcher, the Conservatives secured majorities of 144 and 102 in the 1983 and 1987 general elections.
Mr Watson said: “I’ve run a lot of by-elections and elections in my time for the Labour party and I know what it is like.
“It is going be very, very difficult to turn the poll numbers around, but we are determined to do it.”
Labour is due to publish its manifesto tomorrow but senior figures are expected to increasingly focus on emphasising what they will argue is the danger of a Conservative government with a large majority.
“If we get to June 8 and [Theresa May] still commands the lead in the polls that she had at the start of the election, she will command a Margaret Thatcher-style majority,” said Watson, referring to the former prime minister’s 140- and 100seat landslide victories in 1983 and 1987.
“A Conservative government with a 100 majority … It will be very hard for them to be held to account in the House of Commons.
“It means there won’t be usual checks and balances of democracy ... all those things go out the window. You end up with governance by Theresa May without much accountability – and I don’t think anybody wants that.”
AS IF the Labour Party did not already have woes enough intervalometer in fighting the general election, the extraordinary and damaging intervention by its deputy leader, Tom Watson, can only make its already invidious task even more difficult.
To admit that his party has little chance of forming the next Government, as he appeared to at the weekend, is surely unprecedented in modern British electoral history and amounts to throwing in the towel with more than three weeks to go until polling day.
There is an element of Dad’s Army’s Private Frazer wailing “We’re doomed” about Mr Watson’s comments. The Frazer character was an undertaker, and fittingly, the party’s second most senior figure appears to have already written Labour’s epitaph.
Yet there is nothing remotely comical about the scale of Labour’s problem. It is unseemly to hear Mr Watson appear to reduce the serious question of who governs Britain to the level of an X Factor-style personal popularity contest by urging voters to back candidates such as Rachael Reeves and Paula Sherriff because they are the antithesis of Jeremy Corbyn.
That speaks eloquently of the internal rifts within Labour. For Mr Watson to effectively surrender can only demoralise the party’s candidates and activists in even hitherto safe seats.
Worse, he has sent a message to the wider electorate that if Labour’s high command already believes the election is lost, then what credibility can be placed on its manifesto and what point is there in voting for it?
What a contrast the disciplined, relentless Conservative campaign is by comparison, featuring highprofile senior ministers visiting the regions, day after day, and a Prime Minister emphasising her personal credibility. Perhaps so well that Mr Watson believes in her.
Theresa May must hardly be able to believe her luck. Victory is within sight, not just because voters are convinced, but because Labour surrenders.