Following the wide-spread coverage of Ian Austin and John Woodcock calling on the public to back Boris and block Corbyn, a third former Labour MP – Tom Harris – has used a column in today’s Scottish Mail to back Boris for PM. Just about counteracts David Gauke’s u-turn this morning to stand as an independent against the Tories…
Harris – who served as a transport minister under Blair and Brown – has invoked the words of Theresa May (of all people), in writing “I will be voting Tory… to save the country that I love”, and goes on to say:
“Jeremy Corbyn, the present leader of UK Labour, cannot and must not be trusted with the security of our nation. Nor, frankly, can he be trusted with safeguarding the Union”
Harris – who also served in Ed Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet and backed leaving the EU in 2016 – wrote a similar column in 2017 warning of the dangers of Corbyn, but stopped well short of overtly calling on people to vote Tory. Austin, Woodcock and he really are Mainstream…
Guido was at the Mainstream election campaign launch earlier today, former Labour MP John Woodcock joined Ian Austin in calling on voters to back the Conservatives, because Jeremy Corbyn could not be trusted on national security and is unfit to lead the country. When he said his piece to camera Woodcock visibly hesitated before saying the words “vote Conservative”. Guido got the sense that it wasn’t a dramatic pause, it was just genuinely hard for him to say. McDonnell and the rest of the hard left are calling the two of them Tories. Labour activists are convinced peerages are on their way. Perhaps. After Tom Watson quitting it is pretty clear that the moderate wing of the Labour Party is finished for at least a decade or so…
“I can’t believe it has come to this.”
Ex-Labour, now Independent, MP Ian Austin’s emotional appeal for voters to back Boris Johnson over Jeremy Corbyn in the General Election.#r4Today | https://t.co/s6BnQpZL5K | @bbcnickrobinson pic.twitter.com/EpAwl1jGUN
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) November 7, 2019
Ian Austin, Gordon Brown”s former press secretary and Labour MP, says Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be Labour leader or PM. He says the choice is between Corbyn and Johnson. Patriotic Labour voters should, he says, vote for Boris, his voice breaking with emotion Austin says “It really comes to something when I’m telling people to vote for Boris Johnson in this election.”
Ian Austin’s Mainstream commissioned polling from YouGov of Labour Party members and found a party that has moved on a long way from being Blair’s “political wing of the British people”. Corbyn’s Marxist Labour Party is very different and so are the members. Of course we knew they would nationalise and tax everything that moves and seek to muzzle the opposition press – there are however a whole raft of sentiments that are shocking.
YouGov’s poll of over 1,100 members shows how out of touch with Labour voters the middle-class lefties really are:
- 79% want to control who runs newspapers
- 69% think it would be legitimate for unions to stage a general strike to bring down a Tory government;
- TWO THIRDS believe the party doesn’t have a problem with anti-Semitism, OVER HALF believe the crisis is the fault of the media or Corbyn’s opponents;
- Members would rather do a post-Brexit trade deal with Russia than Israel!
Astounding difference with popular opinion shows how out of touch with the working classes Labour is nowadays:
- TWO-THIRDS are ashamed of Britain’s history;
- MORE blame the British Government and Army for the Troubles in Northern Ireland than say it was the fault of the IRA;
- MORE THAN HALF would feel bored, embarrassed or angry about singing the National Anthem – only 10% would be happy to sing “God Save the Queen”
- SIX in ten want to abolish the royals for a republic;
Expect the Brexit Party to use the findings to appeal to patriotic former Labour voters who despise terrorists, respect the Queen and love their country…
Download full polling data here.
The papers tomorrow will be covering an absolutely shocking poll from Ian Austin’s new cross party organisaton Mainstream.
Mainstream is a new campaign – led by a group of people from different political backgrounds – designed to encourage a return to respectable and responsible politics, and to banish extremism from British politics once and for all.
Britain has long had a strong democracy where mainstream politics was the norm. Disagreement was always possible, but within the realms of respectful and responsible debate. It felt as if we shared the same mainstream patriotic outlook, even if we disagreed with each other on the best way to achieve a better society and a more prosperous economy.
Sadly, in many cases mainstream ideas have been replaced by views that are wildly out of step with the views of the general public. Extremism is rearing its way back into the public discourse in a way that would have been unfathomable just a few years ago.
Jeremy Corbyn has finally made a move of sorts on Brexit, in the form of a letter to various MPs which is less about stopping no deal and more about making himself Prime Minister. Corbyn says he will “seek the confidence of the House for a strictly time-limited temporary government with the aim of calling a general election, and securing the necessary extension of Article 50 to do so.” In the same way the dictatorship of the proletariat is only meant to be temporary…?
Funnily enough opposition MPs haven’t been buying it, most importantly including Jo Swinson, who now leads 14 MPs after serial defector Sarah Wollaston finally joined the Lib Dems last night. Swinson says Corbyn is “not the person who is going to be able to build an even temporary majority in the House of Commons for this task”. This is a serious electoral headache for the Lib Dems, back Corbyn and they’ll be seriously tainted by his toxic brand, fail to back him and they’ll be accused of allowing no deal to happen. Choices, choices…
The reaction from other non-Labour opposition MPs was even less positive:
1/4 I am disappointed Jeremy Corbyn did not include me in his letter especially as there are five MP members of our party.
Our exclusion and the preference for a General Election rather than an immediate People’s Vote leads me to conclude this is nothing more than a stunt.— Anna Soubry MP (@Anna_Soubry) August 14, 2019
Ultimately Corbyn’s letter changes nothing, we are still fundamentally stuck in the position where Corbyn will not back anyone else for ‘temporary’ Prime Minister while there isn’t even close to a Parliamentary majority of MPs who would back him. Pundits and commentators have got a whole two weeks left of August silly season to fight out amongst themselves who the best alternative would be, the bottom line is that it’s simply not going to happen…
