The Labour leadership contender Yvette Cooper is to urge people not to “write off the party” based on some polls showing Jeremy Corbyn is set to win the contest.
In a speech in Devon on Friday afternoon, she will tell people to be sceptical about the accuracy of polls, reminding them that they were wrong during the general election.
Although Corbyn appears to be the clear frontrunner, after a surge of grassroots enthusiasm for his leftwing politics, she will advise against assuming he will win.
“To listen to some, you would think the leadership election was all sewn up. That Jeremy had won,” she will say. “It isn’t. He hasn’t. The power to choose the future of our party and our country lies in all our hands right now.
“Don’t write our party off based on some polls. Surely 8 May taught us a bit of scepticism about poll results. Don’t think it’s a done deal because of the bookies’ odds. Paddy Power hasn’t got a hotline to the hearts of Labour party members.”
Cooper will point out that hundreds of thousands of people have yet to even open their ballots papers. “Many thousands are still undecided,” she will say.
“This is no time for hubris from those who think they are winning. And no time for defeatism from those who believe we need another way. No time to stand back and let our party drift into another election defeat.”
All of the leadership camps privately admit that their data shows Corbyn currently in front but the complexity of the alternative voting system makes the outcome of the result more difficult to predict.
Although the registration of new members and supporters has swelled the electorate to 600,000 people, it is unknown how many will be excluded by Labour’s verification system checking whether new entrants support the party’s values. Many Corbyn supporters have taken to social media to complain they have been unfairly excluded.
