Jeremy Corbyn tells Labour to go 'flat out' in final pre-election push

Jeremy Corbyn rallied supporters to get out to marginal seats and go “flat out” campaigning for the final day of action before voters go to the polls.

In a 500-mile trip from Scotland to southern England on Wednesday – stopping at seats where Labour is battling the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party – the Labour leader urged supporters to fight for every vote.

Following encouraging polls, which showed that he has narrowed Boris Johnson’s lead, Corbyn began with an event in the morning in Scotland, before heading to the Midlands and Bedford, with a last rally in London in the evening.

In a half-hour stopover in Bedford, where the Labour candidate, Mohammad Yasin, won in 2017 with a majority of 789, Corbyn urged hundreds of supporters that they could go with confidence into election day.

“Be of good cheer and be of good confidence. Go out tomorrow in the snow, hail, sleet and sunshine.

“Re-elect Mohammad, make Bedford Labour and win the general election,” he said at the 84th and final constituency visit of the campaign.

To a laughing crowd, he impersonated Johnson stumbling over the number of hospitals the government plans to build, and then ridiculed the prime minister for apparently hiding following a request for a television interview on Wednesday morning.

“Our manifesto is a serious manifesto and it is fully funded. We put ourselves out there to be questioned on this. I take questions on our manifesto, John McDonnell does as does everyone else. I don’t have to go and hide in a fridge when somebody comes to ask me a question,” he said.

Labour is also fighting to win in nearby Luton North, where the former Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins stood down when parliament dissolved.

In Luton South it is up against the former Labour MP Gavin Shuker, who is now standing as an independent.

Later at a rally in Hoxton in London, Corbyn said that the choice facing the UK is a “truly historic” fork in the road between a Labour government which empowers people or a Tory government which works for the wealthy.

“Over the last 10 years, the number of billionaires has grown exponentially. There are 150 of them.

“You know what, some of these billionaires are really mean because only 50 of them contribute to the Conservatives,” he said. He also criticised many in the national media for “relentless” criticisms of Labour. “I believe in a free press. I just wish they would free themselves from the shackles of the billionaires. They are determined to stop real change. They won’t win, we will, to create an inclusive and hopeful society.

“Because tomorrow you can shock the establishment, by voting for hope,” he said.

Earlier in the day, senior Labour figures from the north of England, including the party chair, Ian Lavery, and the shadow minister for labour, Laura Pidcock, spoke to hundreds of supporters gathered in a village outside Middlesbrough.

Corbyn said: “I am utterly determined we go flat out between now and 10pm tomorrow evening to get everyone to vote, and hopefully vote Labour, and recognise in our manifesto there is hope, there is something positive.”

Teesside and County Durham are major targets for the Tories in this election, with Labour-held Stockton South, Bishop Auckland, Darlington, Sedgefield and Redcar among the seats they hope to gain. Labour want to win back Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland which went Tory in 2017.

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The Tories have already made inroads in the traditional Labour area after their candidate, Ben Houchen, was elected Tees Valley mayor in 2017.

Corbyn told campaigners: “Please do absolutely everything you can to win in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, and all the other marginal constituencies. It is our chance tomorrow to elect a government that will be for the many not the few.”

Pidcock, who is one of Corbyn’s most senior female shadow cabinet ministers, said in her address to the crowd that the election was still to play for as there were undecided voters even at this late stage.

The event held in the car park of the Sporting Lodge Inn in the village of Stainton, outside Middlesbrough and in the marginal Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland seat, was attended by hundreds of supporters including firefighters, union representatives and nurses.

Corbyn also used his rally to talk of the abuse his team had had during the campaign.

He said: “We now have had 51 days of this campaign and 51 days of unbelievable levels of abuse hurled at leading figures of the Labour party, unbelievable levels of character assassinations going on against our party and our movement and I simply say this: if you wish to inhabit the gutter, that’s absolutely fine by me but I will not be joining you there.”

In the afternoon, around 200 people gathered in Dinnington, Rotherham, to see Corbyn give a 12 minute stump speech in the rain. Rother Valley has been Labour since its creation in 1918, but YouGov’s MRP poll has it down as a possible Tory gain on Wednesday.

The Labour leader emerged from his party’s battle bus - for one of six planned campaign visits on Wednesday - to chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”.

“The choice could not be clearer,” he said. “The choice is, you carry on like this. You carry on with a prime minister you can’t trust. You carry on with a government that won’t tell you the truth, or you elect a Labour government, where we set out page after page in our manifesto of fully-funded, fully-costed, very carefully prepared [policies].”

He said the manifesto was the product of the work of “thousands of people in our party and our unions and our communities”. The document’s policies would only bring UK public spending up to the same levels as France and Germany, said Corbyn. “That’s how far backwards we’ve gone since Margaret Thatcher moved into Downing Street,” he said, to boos from the crowd. “And Tony Blair,” said one man.

The Labour leader climbed back on the bus to more chants of “Oh Jezza, we love you”. “Thank you for giving us hope, Jeremy,” shouted one man.