Tories try to contrast the PM and the Labour leader, who she claims would go ‘alone and naked’ into Brexit negotiations

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Theresa May set the tone for the final phase of the general election campaign with her strongest personal attack on Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday, claiming the Labour leader’s performance in the previous night’s live TV debate showed he would be “naked in the negotiating chamber” when Brexit talks start next month.

The outspoken remarks represent an attempt by Conservative strategists to refocus the prime minister’s message on a direct comparison between herself and the Labour leader – as the party seeks to shore up its opinion poll lead with little more than a week before voters go to the ballot box.

General election: May and Corbyn to miss BBC debate as campaign gets personal – politics live Read more

In a speech to party activists and journalists in Wolverhampton, May launched a series of strongly worded attacks on Corbyn’s character and leadership style.

She said Monday’s television debate – in which the two leaders faced questions from a live audience and from Jeremy Paxman on Channel 4 and Sky News – had revealed Corbyn as unfit to lead Britain through the tough talks ahead.

“Jeremy Corbyn’s minders can put him into a smart blue suit for an interview with Jeremy Paxman – but with his position on Brexit, he will find himself alone and naked in the negotiating chamber of the European Union,” she said.

As the audience of Tory activists laughed awkwardly, she added: “Now I know that’s an image that doesn’t bear thinking about. But actually this is very serious.

“With the Brexit negotiations due to begin just 11 days after polling day, he is not prepared for those negotiations – but I am prepared.

“Prepared to take the difficult decisions that leadership demands. Prepared to do what is necessary to protect and defend our country.”

The use of “naked” in the phrase appeared to be a dig at Corbyn’s anti-nuclear stance – the word was famously used in 1957 by Labour’s Nye Bevan against unilateralists on the left of his party, when he warned that stripping Britain of nuclear weapons would send a future foreign secretary “naked into the conference chamber”.

Corbyn had been questioned by Paxman during the Channel 4 debate on whether he would use nuclear weapons, or launch a drone strike against a suspected terrorist.

May said: “What last night’s television debate brought home in Technicolor was that only we have the will and the plan to make a success of Brexit.

“He’s not prepared to use the nuclear deterrent; he’s not prepared to take action against terrorists; he’s not prepared to give the police the powers they need to keep us safe,” she said.

She described Brexit as the defining issue of the election, and claimed the Labour leader had “lurched chaotically from half-baked plan to half-baked plan”. She added: “I am prepared; I am ready to go. Jeremy Corbyn is not.”

“Everything depends on and will be defined by the outcome of these next five years. This is no time for a weak leader to be making it up as they go along.”

Labour issued no formal response to May’s remarks, because Corbyn’s team has made a deliberate decision not to respond to personal attacks.

Although the Conservatives remain comfortably ahead in the polls, the party’s lead has been slipping.

The Guardian’s latest ICM poll still gives the Conservatives a 12-point lead, putting them on a 45% share of the vote, down two points from last week, with Labour unchanged at 33%.

A separate seat-by-seat projection by polling company YouGov, released late on Tuesday, predicts that the UK is on course for a hung parliament.

According to its estimates, May could lose 20 seats and her majority, while Labour could gain 28 seats. Such a result would see the Tories’ 330 seats reduced to 310, and Labour’s 229 become 257.

The figures are from the polling model’s central estimate, which acknowledges a large range of variation, but it predicts that even a good night for the Tories would give them only 15 more seats than May now has.

The Tories’ poll lead has narrowed significantly since the start of the campaign, in particular in the wake of the party’s manifesto launch, which led to days of damaging headlines about the controversial social care policy.

The backlash prompted May to announce that she would cap the total costs of elderly care to prevent wealthier pensioners seeing too much of the value of their homes set aside to pay for their care – though she has still not revealed at what level such a cap will be set.

As the focus of the Conservatives’ campaign narrows in the remaining few days, Labour will seek to switch the debate away from Brexit and back to the state of Britain’s public services on Wednesday, with a press conference in London, underlining the likely impact of another five years of spending cuts.



“Over the last seven years the Tories have starved the public services we rely on of resources, running them down and pushing them into disrepair,” Corbyn is expected to say.

“Patients are suffering ever longer waits and overcrowded wards – those who need care have been left without it. Children are crammed into overcrowded and crumbling classrooms. It has to change.”

One senior Tory said May’s renewed stress on her leadership qualities was a return to the strategy mapped out by her campaign adviser Lynton Crosby, and based on polling and focus group findings.



Guardian/ICM poll: Tories' 12-point lead offers Labour crumbs of hope Read more

“The strategy from the beginning was always, him or me – specifically, him and me on Brexit. What’s happened is turbulence and events have thrown it about a bit. We’re going back to that core message,” he said.

May’s rhetoric against the Labour leader appeared to have toughened significantly, underlining the Conservatives’ determination to exploit what they regard as Corbyn’s weaknesses.

One insider suggested that by making a speech last Friday drawing a link between terrorist attacks such as the deadly bombing in Manchester, and Britain’s foreign policy, the Labour leader had made himself “fair game”.

Unlike at events in the early days of the campaign, the bright blue backdrop to May’s speech prominently included her party’s name, urging voters to back “Theresa May and the Conservatives.”

Her speech to Tory activists also touched on many of the running themes of her premiership, renewing the pledge to “put government at the service of ordinary working people”.

May’s claims came as a group of independent experts based at Kings College London warned that none of the parties is being honest with voters about the full implications of Brexit.

The report from the UK in a Changing Europe group is called Red, Yellow and Blue Brexit: the Manifestos Uncovered (pdf).

It warns that the kind of Brexit deal that Britain secures will affect everything from trade to foreign policy, and its impact has been underplayed by all the major party manifestos.

“What is striking, is that while all three parties view Brexit as a major event, the manifestos treat it largely in isolation from other aspects of policy, rather than the defining issue of the next parliament,” said Prof Anand Menon, who chairs the group.

Asked about May’s comments, he added: “No prime minister goes in naked, because that’s what the civil service is for – but the big question is whether the civil service will be given sufficient resources for the scale of the task ahead.”







