Corbyn has now drawn up his battle plan and it’s the one the Tories have been dreading
Theresa May is clinging on to power by a thread, and the public is in uproar about about her attempted deal with the hard-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Now Jeremy Corbyn has announced his battle plan. It’s a plan the Tories won’t like at all.
The battle plan
While Theresa May spent Saturday 10 June negotiating a deal with a party that has extensive links to terrorism, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reportedly spent it tending his allotment. May emerged saying she’d reached an agreement with the unionists, a deal which would threaten peace in Northern Ireland. Her claims were immediately disputed by the DUP, throwing Downing Street further into chaos. Corbyn, meanwhile, emerged ready to speak about his battle plan for transforming Britain.
The Labour leader has told The Sunday Mirror:
I can still be Prime Minister. This is still on. Absolutely.
How? Because May has to present her legislative programme to Parliament via the Queen’s speech on 19 June. MPs then have six days to debate it before voting on it on 27 June. If it gets voted down, it will effectively constitute a vote of no confidence in May’s minority government.
And Corbyn thinks there may be enough opposition in Parliament – including on the government’s backbenches – to vote the government down:
We will – obviously – amend the Queen’s Speech. There’s a possibility of voting it down and we’re going to push that all the way.
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If the government is voted down, the Queen would then invite Corbyn to try to form a government. And he is ready to put forward his own Queen’s speech. If that was voted through, Corbyn would become Prime Minister. If it was also voted down, it would trigger another general election – and that would be bad news for the Conservatives.
The wind at his back
Despite being routinely undermined by his own party and smeared by almost the entire mainstream media, Corbyn’s Labour won 40% of the vote share in the election. It was the biggest increase in vote share for Labour in any election since 1945:
Jeremy Corbyn has just increased Labour's share of the vote more than any other leader in any other election since Attlee in 1945 pic.twitter.com/CwcHzHZ04q
— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) June 9, 2017
And the momentum is behind the Labour Party. John McDonnell has written in The Guardian:
My judgment is that if the campaign had been a couple of weeks longer, we would have secured a majority, given the narrowness of the voting in so many seats.
The Conservatives reportedly believe the same, as Sky News points out:
They think Jeremy Corbyn has the wind at his back and could win more seats. They have reason to be worried… There are now 29 Conservative seats in England and Wales which have majorities of less than 2,000 – and 17 of these have majorities of less than 1,000.
A new movement
New Labour trashed the party’s long-term electoral chances by neglecting its core voters, famously gambling that “they have nowhere else to go”. The chart above shows just what a catastrophic miscalculation that was.
But, under Corbyn, Labour has finally found itself again. Its former voters are returning. A popular movement – which the political class entirely failed to see and still doesn’t understand – has coalesced behind Corbyn. And the young are flocking to support his vision of the future.
At the end of his interview, Corbyn reminds us why:
For too long now the rich have got ever richer whilst those struggling have had no hope of improving their lot… We cannot continue along this path. There is a new movement in Britain demanding social change and the millions who voted for the Labour Party cannot and should not be denied.
He adds:
I’m ready for another general election. This is just the first step.
Labour didn’t just do well in the election; it did well on an ascending trajectory. The Conservatives didn’t just do badly; they have now descended into chaos – and are putting the Northern Ireland peace process at risk for their own political gain. That decision could make the Conservatives unelectable for many years to come. So Corbyn is right to prepare for another general election. The British people voted for many things on 8 June – but few of us voted for the coalition of chaos that now rules us. And if the parties end up facing the electorate again, the Conservatives have everything to fear.
Get Involved!
– Sign the petition of no confidence in a Conservative/ DUP coalition.
– Make your thoughts on the deal known. Contact your MP and be vocal on social media.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
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