Cameron, surely, is more vulnerable at the moment than Corbyn

Cameron, surely, is more vulnerable at the moment than Corbyn

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Betting on which leader will go first

In the picture above are the latest William Hill odds on which of Cameron or Corbyn will stand down first. As can be seen the LAB leader is 4/6 to go first which I think is wrong.

Firstly the rules of the Conservative party make it far easier for a challenge to be mounted and, indeed, recent history has seen both Mrs Thatcher and Iain Duncan Smith being voted out by the party’s MPs. There’s no such simple mechanism with the red team.

Secondly the outcome of the main UK political event in 2016, the referendum on June 23rd, could lead to all sorts of consequences within the Conservative party which are hard to predict. So many within the party have invested large part of their political careers on the country being able to decide on Britain’s EU membership that it going the wrong way for them is hardly going to close the issue down. A LEAVE vote or narrow REMAIN victory could spark off an attack on Cameron’s position and it is far from clear that he would survive it.

We saw in Scotland after the September 2014 IndyRef how a 10% defeat for YES led to changing the whole of politics north of the Tweed

It is true that within Labour that Corbyn’s leadership victory on September 12th 2015 has led to a huge amount of turmoil reinforced by his lacklustre Commons performances and his total failure to capitalise on the Tory EU divide. Other leading Labour figures would be having a field day

Fortunately for Corbyn party rules makes it much harder for MPs to mount a coup.

The May 5th locals, Scottish, Welsh and London elections could change that but UK politics at the moment is totally overshadowed by the EU decision. The pressure on Labour MPs not to rock the boat in the seven weeks between the May elections and the referendum will be strong.

Mike Smithson



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