LONDON — U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has signed off on a plan to adopt Donald Trump-style media tactics in a bid to turn around his poll ratings, according to a senior party official familiar with the initiative.

Corbyn’s inner circle, alarmed at the party’s dramatic slump in support, agreed over Christmas to overhaul their media strategy, taking direct inspiration from the U.S. president-elect’s aggression against mainstream TV networks and newspapers, which they hope will whip up support among those already distrustful of the media.

“What we have been doing has not worked, we know that,” the senior party official said. “There is no bunker mentality. We have got to change tack.”

The decision to take on a more aggressive, insurgent strategy was agreed by Corbyn's senior advisers during the parliamentary recess when they met to assess the Labour leader's impact in 2016. Corbyn has personally agreed the change in direction as part of a wider bid to cast himself as the leader of a populist, anti-establishment movement, according to the senior aide involved in the discussions. "He's fully signed up," the official said.

Asked specifically if Corbyn's inner circle had been inspired by Trump's success in the U.S., the aide said yes, citing how the president-elect had used negative media coverage to his advantage "to reinforce the message," turned campaign rallies into media events in their own right and used infrastructure spending pledges to connect with voters turned off from politics.

The success Vote Leave had during the EU referendum by repeatedly using the hotly disputed claim that EU membership cost the U.K. £350 million a week had also been noted by Team Corbyn, the official said. Senior figures in Vote Leave say the Remain campaign's decision to attack the figure simply played into their hands by highlighting the cost of EU membership.

Corbyn’s team have made the calculation they have little to gain from a conventional media strategy of courting mainstream newspapers — such as the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph — whose politics are diametrically opposed to theirs.

Aides are mindful of the experience of former Labour leader Ed Miliband’s press operation. Despite relatively good relations with "enemy" newspapers, which led to Miliband’s team often securing positive inside-page news stories in such publications, come election time Miliband was pilloried relentlessly.

As part of a “let Corbyn be Corbyn” approach, aides intend to take a relaxed approach to message discipline, even if it prompts controversy.

Corbyn’s spinners, by contrast, have decided to cut their losses and treat publications who don’t take them seriously with scorn, as Trump has done with great effect in the U.S. “We’re going to use the levity of the media against them,” said the aide who is close to the Labour leader, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have been in a constant defensive mode and that just hasn't worked."

Instead of trying to rebut or kill a negative story that might appear in the press, Corbyn’s team now plan to highlight such articles, making greater use of Twitter and Facebook to attack the media rather than attempting to manage it, according to the aide involved in drawing up the strategy.

The move is likely to further alarm Corbyn's centrist opponents in the parliamentary Labour party who view his leadership with despair and have urged him to professionalize his operation. However, another senior Labour aide said the majority of MPs would stay silent in a bid to avoid any blame in the event Corbyn's leadership continues to flounder. "If they've got a plan, okay, good for you, just get on with it. That is what most MPs now think. But, to be honest, the plan is what they do already through mismanagement."

'Where's Corbyn?'

Corbyn’s decision to cut his losses with media critics is part of a “relaunch” strategy that will see his team try to portray him as an anti-establishment firebrand, a left-wing Trump, in a bid to seize upon the anti-elite mood pervading Western politics. He will make a number of interventions this week, including a speech expected on Tuesday and another event at the weekend.

As part of a “let Corbyn be Corbyn” approach, aides intend to take a relaxed approach to message discipline, even if it prompts controversy. Corbyn’s team noted with interest that of all his recent speeches it was the one that went awry after campaigner Peter Tatchell interrupted it that gained the most media attention. The Labour leader's team say they believe even seemingly negative publicity is better than no publicity.

Other speeches which have been stage managed without interruption have had little impact. “People now keep saying ‘where’s Jeremy?’ We can do a clip [on television] but what’s the point? No one pays attention," the Labour official close to Corbyn said.

“The conventional approach is to rebut a story but not say too much so that it doesn’t become a two-day story," the official added. "That conventional approach has not worked. He’s an unconventional leader so we can’t have a conventional media approach."

Corbyn's team say that letting their leader outline his views more prominently, however controversial they may be, could boost his popularity by playing to his two main strengths — that he says what he thinks and is perceived as a man of integrity.

An embryonic example of the new strategy could be seen on Friday morning, as Corbyn’s Twitter account linked to an article critical of Theresa May in the right-leaning Economist magazine.

“Even the Conservatives’ friends admit @Theresa_May has no plan and no solutions,” Corbyn tweeted. The Labour leader has not typically been explicit about his belief that Tories benefit from “friends” in the media, but he will be far more blunt about his views from now on.

The message sparked an angry response from the Economist. The magazine’s Britain editor Tom Wainwright responded: “Thanks for the retweet, but we are hardly 'the Conservatives’ friends' — we endorsed Labour when it was under more competent management.”

Trump of the left

The strategy is straight out of Trump’s publicity playbook, the Corbyn aide said. "We have watched what happened over there. People talking about you for what some people think are the wrong reasons is better than not being talked about at all," the official said.

The Republican president-elect made an electoral virtue of his regular attacks on the "dishonest media," casting himself as the outsider taking on publications and broadcasters such as the New York Times and CNN, which he portrayed as stooges of the Washington establishment.

Corbyn’s team are also considering turning his rallies, which draw thousands of supporters, into media events in their own right, as Trump managed to do in the U.S. They have also been inspired by the impact the U.S. president-elect’s infrastructure spending plan has had and drew parallels to their own £500 billion spending pledge, which has been lambasted by the government and the press, the Labour aide said. "When you go somewhere and say we'll build this bridge or this bypass, then it becomes tangible, something they can vote for," the aide said.

A Labour Party spokesman said the £500 billion figure represented the total "investment" in infrastructure Labour wanted to see, but only £350 billion would come directly from central government. Under the plan, £250 billion would be invested directly by government in infrastructure over 10 years and a further £100 billion would be placed in a national investment bank. This would then be used to raise a further £150 billion in private capital.

This story has been updated to add a comment on infrastructure spending from the Labour party.