UK: Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party Has Large Lead In Polls Ahead of Thursday’s Election

UK: Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party Has Large Lead In Polls Ahead of Thursday’s Election

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party leads in all major polls as the country heads for the most historic general election of the post-war era.

Thursday’s vote will decide if the United Kingdom will remain within the European Union or restore its national sovereignty. Johnson’s Conservatives lead by an average of 10 percent over their main political rival, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, polling data compiled by the UK newspaper The Telegraph show.

Johnson, who is running on the promise of delivering Brexit, needs 326 seats in the 650-member Lower House to form a majority government. Best for Britain, a pro-EU group, projects him getting a comfortable majority of over 40 seats.

The future of Britain hangs on the outcome of Thursday’s vote. If the Conservatives win a full majority, as most polls suggest, Johnson has pledged in his manifesto to take the country out of the EU on January 31. Corbyn, however, plans to water down Brexit in consultation with the EU and put it to vote in a second referendum.

However, in a leaked internal memo, the Conservative Party has warned against complacency in the last phase of the election. Though the Tories continue to hold their lead over the Labour Party, an anti-Brexit alliance could still win a majority. Any further gains made by the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, Scottish social-democratic SNP, and the Greens could bring a Corbyn-led coalition to power.

The Telegraph on Monday reported the details of the Conservative Party memo:

Jeremy Corbyn is “much closer” to becoming prime minister than voters think because he could get into Downing Street without winning a single extra seat, a Tory party memo has warned.

The memo, dated Dec 7, says the chances of a Corbyn-led coalition have been “seriously underestimated”, as gains of just 12 seats by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and other minor parties would be enough to remove Boris Johnson from No 10.

Internal Tory polling says a hung parliament would be the result of “as little as a 1 to 2 per cent movement in the current vote in a handful of seats”.

Johnson promises strict immigration controls in place once Brexit does away with the EU diktats preventing Britain from regulating its own borders. He vowed to “bear down on migration particularly of unskilled workers who have no job to come to.” The country has “seen quite a large numbers [sic] of people coming in from the whole of the EU […] able to treat the UK basically as though it’s part of their own country,” he told Sky News on Monday. “And the problem with that is that there’s basically been no control at all. And I don’t think that is democratically accountable.”

“The prime minister guaranteed that migration would fall under his plan for an Australian-style points-based system after Britain left the European Union,” UK newspaper The Times reported. The daily noted that the “stronger language” on immigration “in the last days of the election campaign is intended to appeal to undecided Eurosceptic voters in Labour marginals.”

The mainstream media slammed Johnson for making “offensive” remarks about stemming uncontrolled immigration. He faces “fierce backlash and claims of racism” over those comments, The Independent reported.

His socialist rival, Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, is doubling down on his liberal stance on immigration. The Labour Party, setting its eyes on migrant voters, is promising to loosen immigration rules and making it easier for migrants to get their families over to the UK. Once in power, the Labour Party will be “maintaining and extending Freedom of Movement rights,” Corbyn’s top adviser, Diane Abbott, declared.

Conservative campaigners have attacked Corbyn’s proposed policy on immigration, claiming it will double the country’s foreign-born migrant population by 2030 from the current level of around 10 million. Corbyn’s plan “could allow jihadi terrorists stripped of citizenship back into Britain to rejoin their families,” The Sun newspaper reported, citing UK Home Secretary and Conservative politician Priti Patel.

The prospect of Corbyn’s premiership has alarmed many in the UK Jewish community. His political rise has coincided with a surge of antisemitism within the party, with many senior members leaving the party, accusing him of empowering Jew-haters within their ranks. His links to Hamas and Hezbollah, the Islamic terrorist groups which the Labour leader once referred to as his “friends,” has made many British Jews question their place in a country run by him. According to a recent poll, 47 percent of the UK Jews are “seriously considering” leaving the country if Labour wins this week’s election. A separate survey found that “more than 85 per cent believed” that Corbyn was “personally antisemitic,” The Times newspaper revealed.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the UK parliament on Sunday against surging antisemitism in the country ahead of Thursday’s vote.

The news website Times of Israel covered the rally:

Thousands braved the cold weather on Sunday to join a rally against antisemitism which organisers said attracted around 3,200 people.

Protesters held placards marked “Together against antisemitism” and some bearing slogans such as “Antisemitism = Racism / Mr Corbyn – J’accuse” and “racist Corbyn unfit to be PM” during the rally in Parliament Square led by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

The group said some had travelled from Glasgow, Liverpool, Wales and Manchester for the demonstration which sought to raise awareness of growing “Jew-hatred in politics and mounting anti-Jewish hate crime.”

Corbyn is trying to divert attention away from his tarnished track record by accusing his rival of “racism” and “Islamophobia.”

“There are problems of Islamophobia within our society,” Corbyn lamented during the debate on Friday. The Labour leader accused Johnson and the Conservative Party of harboring “Islamophobic” sentiments.

Corbyn was referring to a 2018 op-ed penned by Johnson, which compared women in burkhas to “letterboxes.” “If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree,” Johnson wrote in The Telegraph. “I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”

The mainstream media, enamored with Corbyn ever since the 70-year-old socialist became the leader of the party four years ago, can’t be relied upon holding his feet to fire. While Johnson has been labeled “racist” and criticized roundly by the mainstream media for his burkhas-remarks, Corbyn has been left mostly unchallenged for his lifelong association with terrorist groups and Islamic extremists. “Get Ready for Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn,” The New York Times declared as early as October 2017. CNN calls him a leader who has “an unashamedly socialist plan to transform Britain.”

The chances of a Corbyn victory have been further diminished by the anti-EU vote uniting behind Johnson. With Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party mostly out of the scene, Johnson is free to mobilize the Leave vote. Sticking to his key message, Johnson is pledging to take the country out of the EU. “People voted to get out of the European Union – our democratic duty to do so,” he said at an election rally as the campaign entered its last legs.

Boris Johnson slams Corbyn’s over his Brexit stance.

[Cover image via YouTube]

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