The Conservatives were buoyed by concessions made by Nigel Farage and the Brexit party yesterday. Today, they have been working hard to keep their campaign afloat in key battleground constituencies in the midlands and the north.
Heavy downpours which began last week have left areas across Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and the Midlands affected by serious flooding. The Environment Agency has put “danger to life” flood warnings in five locations in and around Doncaster alone. Homes have been inundated, and people in some of the worst affected areas such as Fishlake have been forced to rely upon candles after their electricity supplies were wiped out by the floods.
These areas happen to be where several crucial Conservative-Labour marginal seats are located, and which the Tories believe will be the key not only to Downing Street but also to a Westminster majority. Unsurprisingly, the Labour and Liberal Democrat opposition to the government have seized upon the opportunity to criticise the government for an inadequate response to the deluge.
Jo Swinson has called for “long-term policy changes”, and pledged £5bn to be invested into a fund to improve the UK’s flood defences over the next parliament.
Jeremy Corbyn described the government’s response as “woeful” in a speech delivered at a campaign rally in Blackpool today. Speaking to his party activists, Corbyn said that “If this had happened in Surrey, not Yorkshire or the east Midlands” then a state of “national emergency would have been declared”. After his speech, Corbyn travelled to the Don Valley in South Yorkshire with local MP, Labour’s Caroline Flint, to visit those effected by the floods.
This was well received by local paper from nearby Rotherham.
Labour are seeking to turn this to their advantage. Corbyn and Labour will be attempting to use recent events to present the Tories as negligent and out of touch in order to stem their advance in Labour’s traditional heartlands. Research by John Curtice, the UK’s leading pollster, has shown that in seats such as Derby North and Rother Valley, a swing to the Conservatives of around 5% will be enough to allow Johnson and co. to win a healthy chunk of seats currently held by Labour.
Corbyn has also attempted to link the floods with two issues in particular which Labour think that they can capitalise on during the campaign – climate change and austerity. In his speech in Blackpool, Corbyn said that “under the Tories, frontline flood response and Environmental Agency staff have been slashed by a fifth, and fire and rescue staff by nearly a quarter…We are in a climate and environmental emergency. Funding flood defences and emergency responders is a priority.”
