Labour ‘hits reset button’ after grim poll warning
JEREMY CORBYN has reportedly hit the reset button on Labour’s General Election strategy after the biggest campaign poll yet predicted a heavy defeat.
High-profile Labour leavers will be dispatched to shore up seats in the north and Midlands after YouGov’s poll of 100,000 voters suggested a Conservative majority of 68, the BBC reported.
Insiders said that the party had overestimated the threat from the Remainsupporting Liberal Democrats, and underestimated the Conservative appeal in Brexit-voting areas. Among Labour seats under threat are Workington and Sedgefield, once held by ex-leader Tony Blair.
Mr Corbyn will also be offering himself as an ‘honest broker’ on Brexit. The Labour leader said the party’s plan for a ‘credible’ new deal and a referendum would ‘bring together the nation’.
He said: ‘That is a message that I will take out all over the country and our campaign is in every part of the country.’ But Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage (pictured) said
Labour was fighting a ‘defensive battle’, claiming ‘they know they can’t win the election’. Unite union boss Len McCluskey told BBC Radio 4 that Labour had to explain to ‘working-class communities who voted Leave’ why they would be better-off under Mr Corbyn.
YouGov’s poll found the Tories are leading in 43 of their top 76 Labour targets, but by less than five per cent in most. It also predicted the Lib Dems’ seat share falling from 20 to 13, and defeat for former Conservatives Anna Soubry, David Gauke and Dominic Grieve and former Labour MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and Angela Smith. Chancellor Sajid Javid warned against complacency among Conservatives, insisting: ‘I’m not interested in any polls except the one that’s going to happen on December 12.’ Labour’s Barry Gardiner told Sky News: ‘For those who were thinking of voting Conservative, I hope this poll gives them great comfort, they sit back, they say, “I don’t need to go out and vote on polling day because it’s wet and it’s windy’’.’