Major Boris Johnson boost as traditional northern Labour heartlands desert Corbyn, poll reveals
LABOUR voters in the party’s heartlands are revolting against Jeremy Corbyn’s dithering stance on Brexit – which could help Boris Johnson keep the keys to Number 10.
The Tories are now on course to win around 30 seats in the North and the Midlands on December 12 thanks to a swing against their main rivals since the last election two years ago.
That may see the Tories win key seats including Bishop Auckland, Great Grimsby, Stoke-on-Trent North and Workington -all in areas which voted to leave the EU.
The news is revealed in a Survation poll – commissioned by the Daily Mail – carried out after Mr Corbyn unveiled his controversial £83 billion manifesto.
Pollsters discovered nearly four in ten traditional Labour voters would be more likely to vote for the party if they ditched Mr Corbyn.
And around one in four Labour voters asked – 23 per cent – reportedly said they preferred Mr Johnson’s Brexit policy.
The Tories are currently 13 points ahead in Great Grimsby, held by the socialists for more than 70 years.
Labour’s support has dived by 18 points since 2017 to 31 per cent, with many voters appearing to have switched to the Brexit Party, which is now on 17 per cent.
LABOUR VULNERABILITY
However, the biggest Labour-Tory swing is in the North West, including Manchester and Liverpool, where Labour had a 19-point lead over the Conservatives in 2017.
That has now been cut to just two points, reveals the poll.
Meanwhile the Conservative Party’s advantage over Labour in the East Midlands has risen from ten points in 2017 to 18 points.
And, over the same period, Boris Johnson’s party has also cut dramatically Labour’s lead in Yorkshire and The Humber region.
Damian Lyons Lowe, of Survation, said: “The figures suggest that even with the Brexit Party contesting Labour-held seats, Labour is vulnerable in places it has held for decades.
“The effect of the disproportionate fall in Labour support in this poll will vary from seat to seat.
“However, the Tories will be confident of winning all target seats in the North and Midlands where they need a five per cent swing, many of those where up to a 10 per cent swing is required, and possibly others too.”
The news comes after pollsters told how Nigel Farage could keep Mr Johnson in Downing Street by pulling key votes away from Labour.
The Brexit Party supremo revealed he would stand down in 317 areas where the Tories won in 2017, to avoid splitting the vote completely for Leave and allowing Labour to get through.
But he refused to go further and step down his candidates in Labour areas as he continues to take the fight to Mr Corbyn ahead of the December 12 general election.
Now, a new stunning poll suggests Labour’s Melanie Onn will lose her Great Grimsby seat to the Conservatives despite a 2,565 majority.
The Labour vote is down 18 per cent according to a Survation poll for the Economist in an area which voted 71 per cent for Leave in 2016, reports The Mail.
And a nationwide poll by Ipsos Mori today showed Boris Johnson’s party has a 16-point lead over Labour with three weeks to go to the election.
Support for the Conservatives stood at 44 per cent, up three points from last week’s poll, and that Labour was up four points at 28 per cent.
POLL SHOCKER
It came as Mr Corbyn launched Labour’s general election manifesto in Birmingham as his fantasy spending plans were slammed as “not credible” by an economics expert.
The Labour boss plans to pay for his Marxist vision of 1970s-style re-nationalisation by raising £82.9bn with a series of 12 tax hikes.
But Paul Johnson, director of independent think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said it was “simply not credible” for Labour to raise the sum by slapping a tough tax on businesses and Britain’s highest earners.
He told ITV: “You cannot raise that kind of money in our tax system without affecting individuals.”
Mr Johnson was stunned by Labour’s radical spending plan.
He said: “It’s impossible to overstate just how extraordinary this manifesto in terms of the sheer scale of money being spent and raised through the tax system”.
CORBYN’S 12 TAX BOMBSHELLS
- Corporation tax – Companies will now be made to pay a 26 per cent duty
- Unitary tax of multinational companies – Labour believe this will stop large firms transferring their cash out of the UK to countries with low income-tax rates.
- Second homes tax – Corbyn hopes this will help with the homelessness crisis in Britain by charging people with a second property a tax that can go into building new council houses.
- Transaction tax – Corbyn wants people to pay a higher duty on paperless transactions like buying shares in a UK company.
- Reverse of inheritance tax cuts – This means that Brits could now pay more on the estate of a loved one when they die.
- VAT on private schools – Corbyn has vowed to “close the tax loopholes” enjoyed by private schools and use that money to “improve the lives of all children”.
- Windfall tax on oil companies – Labour will enforce a tax on fuel giants who have “knowingly damaged our climate” to “help cover the costs”.
- Income tax for those earning over £80k and £125k – Corbyn has vowed to wage a class war on the country’s wealthy
- Capital Gains tax – Brits will now be taxed more on profit when they sell an asset that has increased in value.
- Dividends tax – Those who have shares in companies will now be forced to pay a higher duty on the payments they receive.
- Scrap Married Person’s Allowance – Brits will no longer benefit from the tax cut which reduced your bill between by between £345 and £891.50 a year.
- New Fair Tax Programme – Corbyn has vowed to “go after the tax dodgers” with a new tax avoidance scheme.
“Hundreds of billions of additional spending on investment, £80 billion plus per year on spending on day-to-day things; social security, spending on the NHS, students loans and so on.
“Matched by, supposedly, an £80 billion increase in tax. These are vast numbers – enormous, colossal, in the context of anything we’ve seen ever really.”
The bombshell poll came as Mr Corbyn…
- Attacks business chiefs and vows to increase corporation tax to 26 %
- Dodges position on Brexit but promises to renegotiate Boris’ deal
- Plans renationalisation of our industries despite it hitting pensions
- Rows back on zero-carbon emissions target and promises ‘reductions’
Mr Corbyn has also slapped businesses with a corporation tax hike of 26 per cent, with wealthy Brits earning more than £125k and £80k also having their pockets hit.
The leftie-leader plans to enforce a new second homes tax, a transaction tax on bankers, reversing inheritance tax cuts and imposing VAT on private schools to pay for his radical regime.
To try and win the green vote, Mr Corbyn pledged to enforce a windfall tax on oil companies to those who have “knowingly damaged our climate will help cover the costs”.
MOST READ IN POLITICS
It also emerged that households face shelling out an extra £216 a year in taxes to cover the cost of Labour’s plans to freeze state pension age at 66.
According to financial provider AJ Bell, it could see the government forking out an extra £6bn a year to meet the increased cost of more people taking their state pension.
And this cost could be passed on to the UK’s 27.8million households.
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