General election 2019 latest: Labour hatches new plan to target Leave voters

The general election is a fortnight away and the biggest opinion poll to date suggests voters are only going one way.

The YouGov MRP poll for The Times says that the Conservatives would win 359 seats if the election were held today, giving Boris Johnson a Commons majority of 68.

Labour would win 211 seats, losing more than 50 MPs and falling well short of the 262 they won in 2017.

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But Jeremy Corbyn has a plan to reinvigorate his election campaign in Leave-voting areas, with a new tactic aimed at winning over traditionally Labour-voting Brexiteers.

Labour plans to boost the profile of those former shadow cabinet members who back Leave, and more activists will be moved to Leave areas. Brexit-supporting Labour chairman Ian Lavery will tour Brexit-backing areas, as will lifelong eurosceptic Corbyn.

Labour’s plan to nationalise key services will be sold as “taking back control of key businesses from foreign ownership”, reports the BBC.

It is clear then that this is indeed the Brexit election and not “the climate election” as it was branded by the Green Party. But a new survey by Sky News suggests that combating climate change is set to split the country in a similar way to Brexit.

Of voters who backed Labour in 2017, 58% said climate matters “a great deal”, while only 30% of Conservative voters said the same. And 54% of Remainers said it mattered a great deal, compared to just 28% of Leavers.