Rock star Jezza has lost the working class: Labour's Brexiteers fear Glastonbury reception has gone to Corbyn's head
- Jeremy Corbyn is alienating the party's core support over his 'rock star' appeal
- Brexiteer MPs want Corbyn to concentrate on creating more Englander appeal
- Labour is becoming increasingly divided over Brexit and the single market
- Older MPs warn Corybn will not win the next election relying on young people
Jeremy Corbyn’s rapturous ‘rock star’ receptions from young voters at Glastonbury and public rallies are making him go ‘soft on Brexit’, it was claimed last night.
Brexiteer Labour MPs voiced fears that their previously Eurosceptic leader has had ‘his head turned’ by the hero’s welcome he receives at mass meetings.
There were also dire warnings that Mr Corbyn was now so detached from Labour’s traditional English working-class base that he cannot win a General Election – even with the support of legions of new younger voters.
Labour MPs fear leader Jeremy Corbyn, pictured here at a pre-conference rally is alienating the party's traditional working class support by appearing at events such as Glastonbury
The Labour leader, pictured, has been warned he could possibly lose the next general election
Labour brexiteers fear the support from young remainers, pictured, will lead to electoral disaster as this will force away the party's traditional support base
Ex- Labour Cabinet Minister John Denham, who writes in The Mail on Sunday below, said: ‘Labour looks close to power, but without these lost voters it’s hard to see how Corbyn can actually win.’
The rows threatened to sour celebrations among activists arriving this weekend for their first annual conference since Mr Corbyn’s surprise General Election showing.
The gathering in Brighton opened with Labour riding high in the polls and the party faithful jubilant that Mr Corbyn had denied Theresa May a Commons majority in June.
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But last night, the party was riven by splits over Europe, with Labour insiders privately accusing Mr Corbyn of ditching his previously hardline backing for Brexit to woo the party’s new-found supporters among the youth vote. They claim Mr Corbyn was so astonished by the adulation he received at the Glastonbury festival two weeks after the Election that he turned to advisers and asked: ‘How do we keep hold of this? It’s extraordinary.’
The Labour leader was greeted by placard-waving teenagers with ‘Jezza’ written on their faces in red lipstick and chants of ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’. One party insider said: ‘He was told all these kids chanting “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” were basically Remainers and that if he wanted to keep them, he’d have to tone down his anti-EU rhetoric. And he has. Problem is, the Labour heartlands across the North voted Brexit and they’ll feel betrayed.
Corbyn, pictured, has been urged to launch a 'progressive patriotic' programme to appeal to the party's traditional core support
The insider pointed to the fact that Labour now had a revised party policy of keeping the UK inside the single market for a transitional period, even though Mr Corbyn previously vowed that the UK must quit it because it was ‘inextricably linked’ to EU membership.
Allies of Mr Corbyn hit back last night, saying: ‘Jeremy has been entirely consistent in leading the fight for a jobs-first Brexit to benefit as many people as possible.
‘He is determined to deliver a Brexit for the many, not the few.’
To add to the concerns of Labour Eurosceptics, an alliance of Corbyn supporters and union leaders could combine at the conference to force through an emergency motion calling on him to ‘maintain and extend free movement’ from the EU.
At the conference, Mr Denham will launch a ‘progressive, patriotic’ English Labour Network to reconnect with the party’s traditional, core voters.
Last night, Labour MP and Brexit supporter Graham Stringer agreed with Mr Denham’s analysis, saying: ‘If we don’t regain those white working-class votes, we cannot win.’
In her conference speech today, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott will accuse the Tories of having ‘weaponised immigration’ and pandering to ‘anti-immigrant sentiment’.
CORBYN CAN'T WIN WITHOUT MORE ENGLANDER APPEAL
The rapturous applause Jeremy Corbyn will receive at Labour’s conference won’t just come from his hardcore supporters.
Even his critics in the party will credit him for the surprise surge to 12 million votes and wins in seats as unlikely as Kensington.
But there’s a nagging reality.
Labour's John Denham, pictured, claims Jeremy Corbyn needs to focus on the party's traditional support base if he wants to defeat the Tories at the next election
As Labour has nurtured new, younger, more middle-class and university-educated voters, the party is struggling among people who were once the core of its support. Without these lost voters, it’s hard to see how Corbyn can actually win. They live in every part of the country, but are a particularly big part of the English towns where the next Election will be decided.
They are mainly older; they’ve worked hard without the aid of a university degree; they probably voted Leave. They are patriotic; and they’re more likely to say they are ‘English’ than ‘British’.
In my work as a political analyst, I have tracked the emerging links between national identity and the way we vote.
In Blair’s second landslide in 2001, there was little difference between the votes of people who identified as English, equally English and British, or British. By 2015, Labour came third among the English, behind Ukip and the Conservatives.
In 2016, it was ‘English’ rather than ‘British’ voters who took us out of the EU. Ukip collapsed in 2017 and Labour recovered a bit. But Corbyn would probably be Prime Minister now if he had polled as well among ‘the English’ as ‘the British’.
Labour’s problem isn’t necessarily over policy. Many English voters would love to see more spent on the NHS and think they are ripped off by privatised utilities. But many wonder if Labour’s leaders understand their lives and what they have been through. In just over a generation, the big factories that gave good jobs, status, and solidarity have gone. Rightly or wrongly, rapid migration is easily blamed for undermining community and the growth of poorly paid insecure jobs.
London and a few other cities are booming, but who stands for the nearby towns that live in a different world?
Corbyn promised that free movement would end when we left the EU but the party he leads often seems determined to send signals more designed to appeal to metropolitan voters than those Labour needs to win.
Being English is a way of saying, ‘we are here; we matter’. In a world where everyone – bankers and businesses, universities and big cities, the Welsh and the Scots – all seem to have power and influence, the English want a voice too. Brexit was a demand to be heard; that’s why some Northern Labour MPs were worried about opposing the Brexit Bill.
To be fair, Corbyn is not the first Labour leader seen as middle-class, London-centric and from a different world. Feeling English is as legitimate as any other identity but the cultural gap between the metro-liberals and the rest of England is wider than ever before, as the disdain of some party members for the St George flag makes clear.
The launch of a progressive patriotic English Labour Network at the party conference in Brighton this week aims to build bridges across that gap and stop Labour losing touch for ever with its ‘English’ heartlands.
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