Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to support staying in the EU is the longest suicide note in history and poses a deadly threat to the existence of the party, Frank Field, a former minister and leading out campaigner has claimed.
The Labour MP said 40% of the party’s supporters wanted Britain to leave the EU, but added that their views were being ignored in favour of a pro-EU policy that was designed to please a “London metropolitan elite”.
“The last thing Jeremy needs to do is to undermine further the traditional Labour vote, much of which wishes to leave the European Union,” he said.
“For the party leader more actively to campaign for the Remain campaign will push even more Labour voters into the arms of Ukip.”
Field also claimed Labour voters could have a decisive role in swinging the result in favour of Brexit, as many are already eurosceptically inclined and would want to give David Cameron and George Osborne a “punch on the nose”.
The senior Labour politician said leading figures in the remain camp, including Theresa May, are anticipating Brexit because they are positioning for a Conservative leadership campaign after June.
He told the audience in central London that the intervention of US president Barack Obama warning the UK would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal was counter-productive and help harden the resolve of voters in favour of Brexit. “I would love him to come every day,” he added.
It came as Labour sources told the Guardian that campaigners for the local elections were being told to avoid the subject of the EU on the doorstep in an attempt to avoid turning Eurosceptic voters off the party. The Labour leadership in Wales has allegedly told its party base not to start campaigning against Brexit before 6 May.
Field argued that the Labour leadership had a long record of sharing his view over the EU and said that shouting about that view could boost Labour’s position in working-class communities.
“If it would be favourable to say we are voting to stay in, the message would be to push it as hard as you can on the doorstep,” he said, arguing that, instead, Labour’s support for membership would result in a “heavy price to pay”.
“The views of the London metropolitan elite is coming through again,” he said. He argued that the majority of Labour voters who supported Britain’s place in the EU would not vote for another party. “But the 40% [wanting to leave the EU] know where to go, they will follow their neighbours and vote for Ukip.”
Regardless of the result of the EU referendum, he said it was especially important that Labour voters who want to leave the EU are not seen as “renegades to Ukip” and that their views are taken seriously.
The speech came as another senior Labour MP, Alan Johnson, argued that unions campaigning for Britain to remain in the EU represent nearly 4 million workers.
Speaking in Blackpool, he said: “From nurses and builders, to railway workers, steel workers, postal workers and shop workers, trade unions will be campaigning for a Britain that remains in Europe.
“The rights of working people are protected by our EU membership and Labour and our union movement are united in campaigning for Britain to remain in Europe.”
He argued that Conservative figures Michael Gove and Boris Johnson are not trying to help working families.
“No, their vision is a small state with few, if any, workplace rights, and the Thatcherite ‘supply side’ economy that Nigel Lawson was eulogising the other day. They know the EU protects workers’ interests, and it’s one of the principal reasons why they want to leave the EU.”
