Why the Tories are now the party of the working class – who are set to back Boris Johnson on Thursday
WORKING class Brits are set to back Boris Johnson on Thursday - as long-time Labour voters abandon Jeremy Corbyn, experts have predicted.
Support for the Labour party has tanked as working class Brits turn away from his radical policies, polls have shown too.
Boris Johnson's campaign focus on the NHS, tax cuts for low-paid workers and Brexit has struck a chord with working class voters.
According to polling from YouGov in recent weeks, more than 10 per cent of the working class voters who cast a ballot for Labour in the 2017 election, don't intend to hand them their vote again on Thursday.
In 2017, 44 per cent of them voted for the Labour party, and only 30 per cent of people classified as working class intend to vote for them this time around.
Claire Ainsley, author and executive of social policy research charity The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said Labour have been losing the working class vote for decades.
She told The Sun Online: "Labour has been losing support amongst working class voters since the late 1990s and what we are seeing in this election is that the decline is getting worse and the Conservatives are drawing that support away from them."
GET BREXIT DONE
Boris has spent the final days of the election trying to shore up the working class vote and hammer home his message of getting Brexit done to voters behind the so-called Red Wall in the Midlands and the North of England.
The Conservative campaign has focused on issues that they feel appeal across the board to these groups, such as the NHS and Brexit.
The Tories have also fought for Britain's army of workers with promises of tax cuts for the lowest paid - the PM even ditched cuts for higher paid in order to fund it.
Boris promised he would freeze income tax, VAT and National Insurance for the next five years, as well as cut NI for the Brits earning the least.
The promised tax cuts will save 31 million people £100 next year, the Tories claim.
And the PM recently hinted he would also scrap the hated TV licence, so families could save even more on their costs.
On issues that are traditionally the most important to working class voters, Boris comes out on top, polls have shown.
She added: "(Voters) have seen parties make promises before and they haven't seen fundamental change in their communities.
"Many of their communities feel worse off than they did before so all politicians are going to have to deliver."
'DETACHED FROM REALITY'
Former Work and Pensions Secretary and Conservative candidate for Tatton, Esther McVey, said the modern incarnation of the Labour party has become too detached from the working class.
She told The Sun Online: "Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell's Labour is nothing at all like the Labour (working class voters) grew up with.
"They wouldn't understand the concerns of a Labour voter if they fell over one in the street," she said.
"People understand if (a policy) sounds too good to be true, it invariably is, if people are doing a four day week they know it ultimately can't work out like that.
"(Labour) is detached from reality.
"They are a metropolitan elite that is just detached from the day-to-day life of regular working people.
"They are not talking about things which resonate or relate or ordinary people.";
CORBYN NOT DELIVERING
Working class voters flocked to the Leave campaign in 2016 and made up a huge 62 per cent of the vote to leave the EU.
Those who voted to Leave have been left disillusioned by Jeremy Corbyn's ambiguous "neutral" stance on Brexit and promises for a second referendum.
Mr Corbyn's recent Brexit position comes after years of wavering and failing to articulate a clear point on one of the biggest issues facing the UK.
It has gone down appallingly with working class voters, predominately in traditional Labour heartlands, who have turned now turned their backs on the Labour party.
Even Unite boss Len McCluskey, a Corbyn supporter, warned he was losing working class support after a poll of 75,000 Labour members showed the parties failure to back Brexit was hitting them hard in the Midlands and North of the country.
The crash in support for Labour - and the Tories after failing to get Brexit done in March - led to huge wins for the Brexit party in the European elections earlier this year.
As Boris continues to fight for his pledge to get Brexit done, Tory insiders are confident that left behind Labour voters will turn to the Conservatives.
ALL A BIT POSH
While Mr Corbyn has been campaigning "for the many, not the few", his party has become dominated by "posh career politicians" who are out of touch with the working class.
Academics at UCL released a report into the decline of working class Labour MPs: in the 1920s seven out of 10 came from working class backgrounds, now that number is only one in 10.
The lack of "real world" experience has alienated the voters the Labour party claim to champion.
Retiring Labour MP Gloria de Piera warned her party is in the midst of a war for its "soul" and must reconnect with what was once the workers party.
When voting intention is categorised by education level, the Labour party haemorrhage even more votes.
In 2017 33 per cent of people with GCSEs or below voted for Labour, as few as 18 per cent of equivalent voters intend to cast ballots for Mr Corbyn's big spending party on Thursday.
- GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.co.uk