Allison Pearson

I woke up in the small hours and thought: ‘If I had to chose between no Brexit and Corbyn, I’d choose to lose Brexit’

Every Wednesday morning, I read your emails, usually with great pleasure. Last week, though, one sounded a warning klaxon. Perhaps it was the subject that tipped me off: “YOU Entirely Corrupt and DUMB AS F--- serial LIAR will be hold (sic) to account for your crimes.”

It would probably have been wise to stop reading right there, but curiosity got the better of me. The email contained what I believe is known as a death threat. Among other forthcoming treats, my Corbynist correspondent promised that “we will bring back capital punishment and LAWFULLY EXECUTE you alt-right fascists and traitors for your crimes on the electrical chair”.

Reader, I was shocked. The grammar! Dear, oh dear!

If anyone’s going to the “electrical chair”, surely it should be a moron who can’t get his subject and object sorted out.

Anyway, I replied to my abuser, correcting his email in my very best English-teacher manner. I also inquired solicitously after his miniature Marxist penis.

I won’t lie. It was disturbing. The email lodged in a corner of my brain, a flickering, intrusive thought. “Am I an alt-right fascist?” I asked Himself at breakfast.

“I bloody well hope so, darling,” he said. “We do rely on your goosestepping, although alt-right is purely an American thing.”

I didn’t tell him about the execution bit. Better not. He’s a mild-mannered chap, but he’d put down his copy of Uncle Fred in the Springtime if he ever found out someone wanted to hurt me.

I’m sharing this with you because it’s not merely unpleasant, but because it’s indicative, I fear, of the hateful zealotry that characterises followers of the Labour leader, a man who, in theory, could be our prime minister in five and a half weeks.

People like me, who hold mainstream views shared by millions of voters, both Conservative and Labour, are demonised by his sanctimonious Socialist stormtroopers. Words like “fascist”, which used to have a very specific meaning, are now a lazy catch-all for Anyone Who Doesn’t Agree With Us. Ditto racist.

I am resigned to receiving patronising tweets from bien-pensant

Labour supporters who claim to have thought I was a clever and humorous person before I went over to the dark side and voted Leave.

But this, this deliberate threat of physical harm, of being put to death under a Corbyn regime, is something else entirely.

It has only strengthened my conviction that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage absolutely must reach some kind of non-aggression electoral pact, because the consequences of Jeremy Corbyn entering No10 are truly chilling. Each man has good reason not to co-operate with the other. Farage threatens to run 600 Brexit Party candidates in seats like Portsmouth South, where that would simply deny victory to a pro-leave candidate.

Is his pride really so wounded that he would prefer no Brexit at all than to let the PM and his deal take the credit? Farage’s place in history is guaranteed, but there will be a very sour footnote if he enables a Corbyn victory.

Boris, meanwhile, is being told he can gain seats never before won by a Conservative. But Labour Leave voters are much more likely to vote Brexit Party than to put a cross next to the hated Tories. Sorry, chaps, the risk is far too great: the willy-waving simply has to stop.

A week ago, I woke up in the small hours and my first thought was: “If I had to chose between no Brexit and a Corbyn government, I’d choose to lose Brexit.” I’ve never had a political dream before. The day’s anxiety must have infiltrated my sleep. Until now, there has been no general election in my lifetime in which one possible outcome was a source of genuine fear.

Why is no one saying how profoundly dangerous to this country it would be if Corbyn became prime minister?

Why does the media continue to report his activities as if he were a normal candidate, not a man so flawed he can’t even command the confidence of the majority of his own MPS?

Jewish friends wonder aloud which country they will move to if an anti-semitic party comes to power.

Two entrepreneurs I know, who employ hundreds of workers, have their money ready to leave the UK the second a Corbyn victory is declared. One plans to move his family to Jersey.

Browsing comments online, I was shocked to come across intelligent professional people who claim to be sanguine about a government led by an international socialist who has always supported our enemies and never our friends: “Brexit would destroy the country forever,” wrote one, “Corbyn would only last a few years.”

Personally, I think it’s the other way round. The economic catastrophe, triggered in the first few hours of Dec 13 by an exodus of capital, would just be the start.

There would be Diane Abbott at the Home Office with her unlimited freedom of movement, aided by her incredible mathematics. Educational standards would dive as Angela Rayner scrapped Ofsted. John Mcdonnell, who has the same soothing soft-spokenness as the head of the KGB in Chernobyl, and who would be Chancellor of the Exchequer, is coming for your children’s inheritance.

A former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove has warned that Corbyn himself wouldn’t even get security clearance to join our secret services – the vetting process would reject him. And, yet, this friend of terrorists hopes to run our national security.

Is that what the Brexit purists really want? Do Nigel and Boris think that’s a risk worth running? I can live with death threats, but not the slow death of my country under Corbyn.

Time to make a pact, gentlemen. Better to be safe than sorry.