By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor
The Labour Party is planning to take seats it has not managed to win in decades at the next general election, due to a “bold and ambitious” plan to form the next government.
Corbyn will be buoyed by a recent poll that his party members still back him, but there are concerns that the wider population may not be so favourable.
Labour chiefs know the task to win enough seats to form a Government will be harmed by Conservative “gerrymandering.”
The Labour leader admitted he “does not underestimate the scale of the challenge”, as he knows that the party is not doing enough to persuade enough of the nation to vote for him and his party.
In the recent local elections, Labour held its ground and won the mayoral contests in Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and most importantly London. However, in the key battleground and traditional Labour heartland of Scotland, they trailed the Conservatives in third place.
Delivering a lecture at the LSE, Corbyn said he was planning to make big promises to the electorate that would bring about “very major change indeed” that the country sorely needs.
He said: “For Labour to win a majority in 2020, we need to win seats that we have not won for several decades, and maybe win some seats we’ve never won before. It is an ambitious task and that is without gerrymandering of the electorate through individual voter registration and gerrymandering of parliamentary constituencies though the boundary review based on a gerrymandered electoral roll.
“So, Labour will be ambitious and bold at the 2020 election. We will make big promises and, if we are elected, we will deliver them.”
The priorities will be “housing, jobs, the environment, and real security in society”, he said.
Corbyn criticised the New Labour era for continuing too much of Thatcher’s inheritance, while acknowledging at the same time that it had achieved some positive things. There had been successes it can’t be looked on as a time of only negativity.
The Labour leader also made some strong claims regarding the Chilcot report, and believes a deal with done between George Bush and Tony Blair a whole year before the conflict started.
Corbyn said: “The Chilcot report will come out in a few weeks’ time and tell us what we need to know, what I think we already know: there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no ability to attack within 45 minutes, and a deal had been done with Bush in advance.”
