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Home / World

Jeremy Corbyn, the 'unelectable' politician who could become British prime minister

news.com.au
9 Jun, 2017 05:36 AM5 mins to read

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An exit poll suggests British Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election has backfired spectacularly, with her Conservative Party in danger of losing its majority in Parliament.

He was ridiculed as being "scruffy", too "hard left" for voters, a "terrorist apologist" and even "Mr Unelectable".

Yet despite all the insults, and the expectations of people even in his own party, UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has a real shot at becoming Britain's next prime minister displacing Theresa May.

Despite the naysayers, fellow Labour MP Emily Thornberry has said: "If all of this was an audition to be Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn has passed with flying colours."

Political analysts have said it's precisely Corbyn's "unpolished" aura that has seen the electorate warm to him against the "slick robots that are well past their use-by date".

A Corbyn Labour government has said it will:

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- Opt for a "soft Brexit" by retaining access to the EU's single market
- Immediately guarantee the future of EU nationals in Britain
- Drop what it calls "bogus" immigration caps and introduce new visas
- Renationalise Britain's railways, energy companies and the Royal Mail
- Scrap university tuition fees
- Ban work contracts that don't guarantee a minimum number of hours
- Raise the minimum wage to "at least £10 ($17) per hour by 2020"
- National Health Service will receive more than £30 billion ($51bn) in extra funding
- Commit to retaining UK's nuclear weapons.
This could be paid for, by:
- A new 45p rate of income tax for people earning £80,000 ($135,000)
- A 50p tax rate for those on more than £123,000 ($208,000)
- Taxing firms that pay "very high" salaries to execs
- Raising company taxes.

Exit polls for the UK general election, which historically have been relatively accurate, predict Theresa May's Conservative party will become the largest party in Westminster but, crucially, will fall short of the 326 needed to form a majority.

While Corbyn's Labour Party is unlikely to get more than 270-odd seats, a rainbow coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrats and nationalist parties could propel a politician seen for decades as on the fringe of the fringe straight into Downing Street.

It should not have been this way. Six weeks ago, when May called the election - years before she actually needed to - Labour was polling so badly there were predictions the Conservatives would be delivered an electoral landslide. That they would raise their majority from a slender 17 to as much as three digits.

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One of the key reasons such a thumping victory was expected was the widespread belief that Corbyn, on Labour's far left, was electoral suicide.

Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015, after his party lost the previous general election to the Conservatives.

He was a wildcard entry to the Labour leadership battle, widely predicted to lose and loathed by many of his own MPs.

But enthusiastic grassroots support and a successful campaign of signing up new members, saw the veteran MP for Islington North in London take out the opposition's top spot.

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The Tories were ecstatic. Not only were they in power but Labour were now divided and had a lame duck leader.

In October 2015, Tim Bale, a professor of political science at Queen Mary University in London said: "Labour has elected a leader who Conservatives see as unelectable."

Cameron would go onto lose the EU referendum he called, paving the way for May to take the helm.

May called the election to bring "strength and stability" to a Britain staring down two years of tough Brexit negotiations.

"She thought she was going to win comfortably, easily, and without much effort. She has been disabused of that," said Iain Begg, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics.

Campaign trail missteps and better-than-expected performances by Mr Corbyn have combined to melt away Ms May's commanding lead.

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The Tories' campaign launch was a disaster. A policy to force many older people - core Conservative voters - to pay more for their healthcare, dubbed the "dementia tax", had to be humiliatingly amended. Promises to re-examine the ban on fox hunting had many urban voters scratching their heads.

Corbyn seemed far more assured and Labour's policies of more money for health, raising the minimum wage and nationalisation of public assets seemed to resonate.

In the age of austerity, Labour's mantra of "For the many, not the few" chimed with many Brits.

In contrast, Corbyn, has put in a number of assured performances on television.

"He has looked and sounded comfortable in his skin, in stark contrast to a prime minister who is brittle when she is not absent," a Times columnist observed.

At the start of June, a YouGov poll found 37 per cent of Londoners saw Mr Corbyn as the preferred PM against just 34 per cent for Ms May.

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Writing in the Huffington Post, foreign policy expert and visiting fellow at Oxford University, Dr Kadira Pethiyagoda, said Corbyn's was "radically popular with ordinary people".

"Corbyn had the ideal profile for our current historical moment, including the traits that made [US Democrat Presidential candidate Bernie] Sanders popular: An outsider at a time when people are beyond tired of establishment insiders; pilloried by the elite and undermined by his party's establishment, yet carried by people-power.

"Packing out town squares with supporters, swelling party membership to 500,000 plus; scruffy and unpolished at a time when slick, talking-points-driven robots are well past their use-by date; integrity and consistent morals for over 30 years in an era where trust in politics is at its lowest."

Many people said the UK election was May's to lose. With a disastrous campaign the Conservatives' campaign lived up to this low expectation.

But that Corbyn has got this close to striding over the welcome mat into No. 10 is not all of May's doing. Rather, the British public saw "Mr Unelectable" as really rather electable after all.

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