SCOTTISH Labour will be wiped out at the next election if Jeremy Corbyn fails to oppose Brexit, a new poll has revealed.
The YouGov survey of 2196 Scots, carried out for the People’s Vote campaign, suggests support for Richard Leonard and colleagues would plummet to just 15%, with a quarter of Labour voters switching to the SNP.
One Labour MP described the shock news as a “real wake up call” for Corbyn.
The poll, carried out as part of a UK-wide survey of 25000 people, found that currently, the SNP have the support of 40% of voters, while the Tories are on 25%, Labour on 21% and the LibDems on 8%.
But the poll suggested that if Labour voted “with the Tories to bring about Brexit,” their share of the vote would slump 6 points to 15%, 28 points behind the SNP, who would move up to 43%, And even if Corbyn gives his MPs a free vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, support would still collapse to around 16%.
In both situations the Tory vote share remains roughly the same.
Labour’s Ged Killen, who narrowly won Rutherglen and Hamilton West from the SNP in 2017, said his party would be punished if they failed to oppose Brexit: “This poll is a real wake-up call for the Labour leadership and is a warning not to appease the Government over Brexit.
“Jeremy Corbyn’s best chance of becoming Prime Minister is by making Labour the largest party in Scotland at the next General Election. In 2017, we made great strides in regaining the trust of people in Scotland, but if Labour is seen to allow Brexit to happen, we will undo that progress and take away Jeremy’s best route to Number 10.”
He added: “With only a few months until we crash out of the EU, our party is still sitting on the fence. On the biggest issue of our generation, Labour risks complicity in what will be a historic mistake.”
READ MORE: SNP MP piles on pressure over Brexit ferry firm revelations
SNP MSP George Adam, pictured above, accused Labour of not “lifting a finger to oppose a divided Tory government”.
He added: “If Labour don’t change course soon then the public will never forgive them for their role in imposing Brexit on Scotland.”
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister was defeated in the Commons last night after a handful of rebel Tory MPs joined with the opposition in a vote on the Government’s no-deal Brexit preparations.
MPs voted by 303 to 296 in favour of an amendment to the finance bill which will limit some of the Treasury’s tax powers if Britain crashes out of Europe with no agreement.
Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Tory minister who rebelled to back the amendment, tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper said: “The majority tonight that is expressed in this house will sustain itself. We will not allow a no-deal exit to occur at the end of March.”
Earlier in the day, Michael Gove used an analogy involving swingers in their mid-50s seeking a kiss from Scarlett Johansson to underline the unlikelihood of the UK securing a better Brexit deal.
Speaking at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, the Environment Secretary reportedly stunned colleagues, when he described MPs unwilling to accept May’s deal as the “oldest swingers in town” and compared them to “50 year-olds at the end of the disco, who have turned down all other offers and are waiting for Scarlett Johansson to come along”.
Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd then remarked “or Pierce Brosnan”, before Justice Secretary David Gauke said “or Scarlett Johansson on a unicorn”.
Rudd told her colleagues that “history will take a dim view of a Cabinet that presses ahead with no deal”.
Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, and chair of the leave-backing European Research Group, was not amused. He said the comments were not “persuasive or impressive.”
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