After being made Ukip leader yesterday, Paul Nuttall wasted no time in making it clear who he had in his sights: the Labour party. Nuttall said he wanted Ukip to ‘replace Labour’ within five years. And in its editorial, the Times says this threat spells a ‘nightmare’ scenario for Labour. The paper says that while ‘healing’ Ukip’s own ‘wounds’ won’t be easy following a fractious and divisive few months, ‘the rewards could be historic’; it says that a two per cent swing towards Ukip would lose Labour 13 seats, while Labour ‘would lose 19 more’ seats if one in five Labour voters sided with Nuttall’s party. But can Ukip pull it off? The party’s big challenge, the Times says, is to appeal to Brexit backers from the Tories, who are worried Theresa May might ‘compromise on free movement’, and Labour voters ‘baffled by Mr Corbyn’s indifference to immigration’. But if Nuttall ‘succeeds, for better or worse, he will lead a new force in British politics,’ the paper concludes.
The Sun says it is no surprise some Labour MPs will have been left ‘quaking’ in their boots following Paul Nuttall’s win yesterday. It says the Labour party is ‘in peril’ – and that a ‘working-class northerner’ like Nuttall could win over disgruntled Labour voters in the north of England in a way that Nigel Farage just couldn’t manage. On the Daily Politics yesterday, Nuttall said the Labour leadership were part of ‘a North London Islington set’ – and the Sun agrees. It says ‘Labour is obsessed with issues irrelevant outside Islington and split asunder on Brexit’ – both points which could wipe Labour out at the next election.
A renewed Ukip has Labour in its sights, says the Daily Telegraph. The paper says that while it used to be David Cameron’s Tories who the party had worried, now its Jeremy Corbyn and ‘his cohort of Islington Left-wingers’ who are in danger. But Labour has tried to hit back already – pointing out that Paul Nuttall previously vowed to privatise the NHS. It says that this is the ‘principle criticism’ squared at Ukip by the party – but one that will have little effect. ‘Stoking up fears’ about the NHS ‘misfired during the general election’, the Telegraph says. And using the same line of attack against Ukip is unlikely to succeed. If anything, the Telegraph points out, it ‘betrays a paucity of thought on any other subject’ – and Labour ‘will pay a heavy electoral price,’ the paper says, if Labour doesn’t change its line of attack quickly and try harder to reach disaffected Labour supporters.
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