Corbyn senses move towards Labour

Leader says party has caught mood of country

JEREMY CORBYN believes there is a pro-Labour “movement going on” across Britain as the party continues to gain momentum in the General Election campaign.

Buoyed by his TV performances and polls narrowing to show just a three-point lead for the Conservatives, the Labour leader exuded confidence at a campaign event in Essex, where he told supporters: “There is a movement going on. More than two million people have registered to vote who have never voted before. There’s a mood out there from people who want something different.”

Insisting it was “a time for a change in this country,” Mr Corbyn decried the critics who had written Labour off at the start of the campaign and quipped: “Do you know what? I’m looking forward to next Thursday.”

His remarks came as a new poll suggested the Tory surge in Wales has been halted and reversed, with figures putting Labour up two on 46 per cent and the Conservatives up one on 35. If replicated on polling day, it would give Labour 27 seats, up two, and the Tories nine, down two.

Meanwhile, research suggested Labour was winning the election’s social media battle, with statistics showing it had gained more than 320,000 likes on Facebook in just six weeks; 10 times the number of its opponents.

Labour insiders, who worked for former party leader Ed Miliband, have suggested the 2015 election was lost on Facebook, while Hillary Clinton claimed hoaxes and false news stories on the social media platform contributed to her loss in the US presidential race.

Jessica McAndrew, of creative communications group Beattie, which carried out the research, said: “A party can be very strategic in messaging specific groups in order to create an echo chamber where users will engage with content and strengthen its message within a key demographic.”

She added: “Campaign managers are waking up to the fact Facebook is one of their most powerful political weapons.”

Tonight, the Labour leader will appear before a live BBC Question Time audience in York. With less than a week to go in the election campaign, pundits believe the event could prove pivotal as Theresa May will appear on the same programme, albeit separately.

At the Labour campaign event in Pitsea, Essex, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, made clear that a Labour government, if there were a hung parliament, would not seek to do any formal deals with other parties but operate as a minority administration.

“The truth is we are fighting to win and we are fighting to win with a majority,” she said.

“If we end up in a position where we are in a minority, we will go ahead and we will put forward a Queen’s Speech and a Budget. If people want to vote for it, then good.

“If they don’t want to vote for it, they are going to have to go back and speak to their constituents and explain to them why it is that we have a Tory government instead.”

She added: “If we are the largest party we go ahead – no deals – with our manifesto, our Budget and our Queen’s Speech.”

During his speech, Mr Corbyn accused the Tories of being “weak and wobbly”, saying they could not be believed following the Prime Minister’s U-turn on the so-called “dementia tax” and her

There is a movement going on. There’s a mood out there from people who want something different

failure to set out how many pensioners stood to lose their winter fuel payments.

Today in York before Question Time, Mr Corbyn will say that Labour, if it won power, would create an engine of investment and growth in Britain’s economy to produce at least one million “good jobs”.

He will say: “When Labour talks about job creation we mean decent jobs, jobs which pay a real living wage, which people can get by on and which give people a sense of pride and purpose.

“Labour will invest to drive growth across the whole of Britain, creating wealth which is shared across our country rather than concentrated in the hands of the few. Labour will ensure people are not held back. We will build an economy where everyone shares in the creation of wealth as well as its distribution.”

He will add: “Under the Conservatives, the richest have got richer, while most people’s incomes have fallen or stagnated.”