Jeremy Corbyn ‘WON’T quit as Labour leader even if he loses the election’
One of the leader's close allies said his tenure would be a 'long, long, long process'
JEREMY CORBYN will refuse to quit even if he loses the General Election, one of his close allies suggested last night.
The Labour leader is trailing Theresa May in the polls and is on course to be badly beaten on June 8.
But last night, the party’s election co-ordinator Ian Lavery said the “Corbyn project” would be a “long, long, long process”.
He added that Mr Corbyn’s plans to impose his hard-left policies on the party were still at “the beginning”.
Mr Lavery was introducing the Labour boss at a rally in Glasgow last night, as Mr Corbyn fights to build on Labour’s recent momentum.
He told supporters: “It will be a long, long, long process of changing politics here in Britain.
“Whatever happens in the election isn’t the end in the Corbyn project, it’s only the beginning in the Corbyn project.”
Mr Corbyn has repeatedly refused to discuss what will happen if Labour lose, as polls say they will.
A Labour source denied that Mr Lavery was talking about the leader’s future, saying: “Ian was talking about our transformative manifesto and its policies for the many, not the few.”
Labour have been consistently behind the Tories in the polls ever since the 2015 election.
Although the gap between the two parties has been narrowing in the past week, Mrs May remains on track to increase the size of her majority.
Several senior Labour figures have called for Mr Corbyn to quit if he cannot increase Labour’s haul of seats.
However, he has previously clung on following setbacks such as local election defeats and backbench rebellions, pointing to his huge mandate from Labour members who have twice chosen him as leader.
At the rally last night, Mr Corbyn called on Scots to vote for him because of the SNP’s “obsession” with independence.
He said: “I ask the people of Scotland – who is it to be?
“A Labour Party for the many not the few, or a Tory party only concerned with protecting its powerful and wealthy friends and donors to the Conservative Party.
“In Scotland I know you have the added dimension in the shape of the SNP, I’ve made my views absolutely clear over the past few months about their obsession with referenda, unwanted and unnecessary.
“It’s a tragedy that Scots have not used the full powers of the Parliament to tackle poverty and inequality.”
Labour holds just one seat in Scotland after virtually collapsing in 2015, and is likely to come third north of the border, behind the Scottish Tories.