Senior Labour and the Conservatives figures are set to descend upon Peterborough amid growing panic the Brexit Party could sweep to victory in next week’s by-election.
Following its success in the European parliamentary elections, the vote on 6 June, prompted by the recall of former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya, is being seen as a litmus test for the new party’s ability to win seats in Parliament under a first-past-the-post system.
According to The Guardian, both Jeremy Corbyn and former Labour leader Gordon Brown are expected in the Leave-voting city over the next few days while the Tories are expecting “several cabinet ministers” to arrive this weekend in the hope that they might fight off a collapse in their vote.
Before his tub-thumping speech, The Daily Mirror reported Brown planned to launch “a full-throated personal attack on the Brexit Party leader, pointing to how multi-millionaire Leave donor Arron Banks funded his lifestyle in the aftermath of the 2016 EU referendum”, while also accusing Nigel Farage of attempting to “hijack” patriotism.
The Brexit Party has played down the chances that its candidate Mike Greene could pull off an upset, but a win “would give it a first foothold in Westminster and help build a serious political machine for a general election”, says The Guardian.
The Daily Mail says Greene “appears as a single-issue candidate with his main priority being enabling Brexit to go ahead, then discussing policy later”.
A win could also have wide-ranging repercussions for the two other main parties.
The Conservatives had been confident of picking up the seat after Onasanya was convicted of perverting the course of justice last year. Yet its dismal showing in last week’s European parliamentary elections has spooked the party and victory for the nascent Brexit Party, which only formed in February but has already attracted huge numbers of disgruntled Tory voters, would be a huge shock and could further precipitate its lurch to the right.
It would also boost the chances of hardline Brexiteers jostling for the party’s leadership.
Labour meanwhile will be hoping to hold the seat it won by just over 600 votes in 2017 to demonstrate it can still compete in Leave-voting seats outside its urban liberal heartlands. An emphatic defeat, however, would pile pressure on Corbyn to abandon his strategy of trying to appeal to working class Leave voters and tack more drastically towards backing a second referendum.
Yet last-ditch efforts by both parties could prove in vain, with bookmakers installing Greene as favourite to take the Cambridgeshire seat.
“Perhaps if Labour – or even the Conservatives, who should be the main challenger in Peterborough – had its own positive message to sell, voters might consider them as a serious option next Thursday,” writes Tom Harris in The Daily Telegraph.
“But both main parties are giving the firm impression of being unfit for purpose at this crucial point in our country’s history. The Brexit Party may not triumph next Thursday. But by now most voters will have concluded that neither Labour nor the Conservatives deserve to either.”
