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Labour’s real by-election fear is finishing third

Politics Explained: With the Brexit Party poised to gain its first MP, the battle for Corbyn’s party is remaining relevant

Sean O'Grady
Wednesday 05 June 2019 09:28 BST
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Jeremy Corbyn with the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate Lisa Forbes
Jeremy Corbyn with the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate Lisa Forbes

Seven hundred and eighty one.

That is the number of voters that separated Labour from the Liberal Democrats in the European elections, a mere 1.8 per cent of the vote.

In Peterborough, that is, where a parliamentary by-election on Thursday looks near enough certain to return the Brexit Party’s first MP at Westminster. That will be added to the 29 MEPs the party garnered when the Brexit Party finished first, nationally, in those Euro elections on 23 May. Remember, just in case Nigel Farage has allowed you to forget, that this party was only founded in April this year. The Brexit Party’s Mike Greene is the runaway bookies’ favourite to be the next MP for Peterborough. He, and Farage, will be at the centre of a media circus on Friday, with the reverberations rumbling into the Tory leadership contest. After all, Peterborough voted 60 per cent leave in the 2016 EU referendum, and only 5 per cent of the electorate signed the petition to revoke Article 50 this year, well below the national average. Peterborough is Brexit country.

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