Deputy leader admits party has ‘mountain to climb’ but urges voters to back Labour to ensure Conservatives are held to account

Tom Watson has urged voters to back their local Labour MP in order to avoid a “Margaret Thatcher-style” landslide that would make it difficult to hold the Conservatives to account.



Labour’s deputy leader said the party had a “mountain to climb” over the four weeks until the general election and was lagging behind in the polls with all income groups, including working-class voters.

Corbyn downplays Watson claim that Labour has 'mountain to climb' Read more

“I’ve run a lot of byelections and elections in my time for the Labour party and I know what it is like. It is going be very, very difficult to turn the poll numbers around, but we are determined to do it,” Watson said in an interview with the Guardian.

The shadow cabinet minister said there were some “terrifically exciting” ideas in the manifesto drawn up by Jeremy Corbyn’s inner team, which was leaked to newspapers this week.



Watson said he hoped to become the culture, media and sport secretary on 9 June, adding that he would try to put Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Sky on hold while the second part of the Leveson inquiry into journalistic ethics took place.

But, speaking during a tour of marginal seats in Wales, he also warned of what could be looming if Labour failed to dramatically shift the political picture in just under four weeks.



“If we get to 8 June and [Theresa May] still commands the lead in the polls that she had at the start of the election, she will command a Margaret Thatcher-style majority,” said Watson, referring to the former prime minister’s 140- and 100-seat landslide victories in 1983 and 1987.

“A Conservative government with a 100 majority … It will be very hard for them to be held to account in the House of Commons. It means there won’t be usual checks and balances of democracy ... all those things go out the window.

“You end up with governance by Theresa May without much accountability – and I don’t think anybody wants that.”

The comments came as May turned up the dial in personal attacks on Corbyn, using a speech in the Labour stronghold of North Shields to attack what she described as “economically disastrous socialist” policies.

Meanwhile, Corbyn tried to deflect Tory attacks over the question of national security by insisting he was “not a pacifist” during a speech at the Chatham House thinktank in London. The Labour leader said he accepted military action was sometimes necessary, but insisted it must be “a genuine last resort”.

In Wales, Watson – who travelled to eight constituencies on Labour’s red battle bus emblazoned with the slogan “For the many, not the few” – admitted voters had raised questions about leadership, but insisted that was not new. “He does come up on the doorstep, Jeremy, but so did Ed Miliband, so did Gordon Brown, so did Tony Blair,” he said.

He acknowledged Labour’s eye-watering electoral challenge and urged voters to consider that “a lot of local MPs are running on a good track record”. He also claimed that the idea of the Tories as the party of the working classes was “the biggest myth perpetuated by London-based marketeers”.

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“We’ve got to show it is a myth,” he said. “Labour are low in the polls in all categories – we’ve got a lot to do, we’ve got to convince people we are serious about government … We’ve got to try.”

Watson hit back at the suggestion that Corbyn’s leaked election blueprint had triggered anger among MPs, saying the document had some “incredibly strong” ideas that were popular among voters. The deputy leader also dismissed reports of a fractious atmosphere at Labour’s “clause V meeting”, where the shadow cabinet and national executive committee nailed down a final version of the manifesto.



“I read our media brief and it said that Emily Thornberry [the shadow foreign secretary] was reported to have stormed out of the clause V meeting and that my team were furious. It bears very little resemblance to the meeting I was at, which was incredibly good-natured,” he said.

Watson said the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, had explained how the policies were fully costed and that he would bring forward specific tax proposals during the election campaign.



Asked about the claim by Labour MP Ben Bradshaw that the manifesto was irrelevant because Labour had no chance of victory, Watson praised the MP for his long record in standing up for his Exeter constituency but said Bradshaw was “often outspoken”.

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“He often swims against the tide and that is why he is his own man,” he added.

Watson said the manifesto was all about taking back power – and control. Asked if Labour was adopting the slogan of the Brexit campaign, he said: “The Vote Leave people used ‘take back control’ for a reason, because there are millions of people in the country who feel powerless, who feel that government is not listening to them.”

Having campaigned against phone hacking, Watson made clear that if he became culture secretary he would want to start the second part of the Leveson inquiry into the relationship between journalists and the police.



“We think current rules on media regulation are not good enough – we want a proper fit-and-proper test. So if I end up as the secretary of state for culture, media and sport on June 9, one of the things that will definitely happen is Leveson 2. I don’t think we can let the Fox bid go through until [that is complete] – we would try to put a hold on the bid if we can.”

Watson made clear he considered Labour’s policy document to be “Corbyn’s manifesto”, arguing that “every leader is entitled to stamp their own political personality” on such a publication.

He praised Corbyn’s electioneering style, contrasting a day when the Labour leader “just got a train to Croydon with no organisation” to meet normal voters with May’s flying by “helicopter to a group of hand-selected members”.





