Dominic Cummings ‘offered to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister if the Labour leader helped get Brexit done’, book claims_Nhy
Dominic Cummings offered to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister if he helped get Brexit done, a new book has claimed.
He met up with the then Labour leader’s former spokesperson Matt Zarb-Cousin at Indian restaurant Dishoom in Shoreditch where he discussed the MP for Islington North’s roadmap to get his hands on the keys for No10.
The pair met up in 2019 alongside Corbyn’s election guru James Schneider where Cummings plotted how they could win the next election by causing a split in the Tory party by whipping Labour MPs to vote through Theresa May‘s Brexit deal.
Conservative MPs had turned their backs on her withdrawal agreement in devastation fashion, throwing Cummings’ Brexit dream in doubt.
Cummings messaged Schneider later after the dinner, saying as reported by The Sunday Times: ‘Thanks for dinner comrade! You get Brexit through, [People’s Vote] f***ed … high chance of Govt collapse and election pre-August but Tory civil war guaranteed for years in any scenario…’
The claims are made in new book Get In which details Sir Keir Starmer‘s rise to power.
Schneider is said to have taken the proposal back to his bosses and is quoted in the 480-page tome as saying: ‘I wanted Brexit to pass, the Tories to split, us to run a left-populist insurgent campaign, have a proper operation to do that, and therefore win.’
Cummings is said to have warned a second referendum would spell disaster for Labour and that the Tories would brand the party as not respecting democracy and as ‘against working-class people on Brexit and immigration’.
Jeremy Corbyn addressing MPs at the House of Commons following the bruising general election defeat — December 20, 2019
Dominic Cummings is pictured arriving to give a statement to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry at Dorland House in London — October 31, 2023
Corbyn ultimately went on to back a second referendum saying it was better than the ‘damaging’ Tory deal.
Cummings became Boris Johnson’s adviser who went on to trounce Corbyn in the 2019 general election with an 80-seat majority.
It was Labour’s worst election result since 1935 and Corbyn swiftly stood down as the party’s leader.
The book also details claims that Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff once labelled the PM an ‘HR manager not a leader’.
Morgan McSweeney became the Prime Minister’s chief of staff in October last year after Sue Gray quit the role, saying the ‘intense commentary’ surrounding her position ‘risked becoming a distraction’.
Mr McSweeney, who is known for masterminding Labour’s general election, joined the party under Tony Blair while working in a junior role at the party’s headquarters.
In 2017, he became a director of the think tank Labour Together, which opposed the politics of Corbyn.
He later left the organisation to help run Sir Keir’s 2020 leadership bid by becoming his chief of staff.
Corbyn’s election guru James Schneider pictured outside BBC Broadcasting House in 2017
Corbyn addresses the audience during a climate emergency rally on November 27, 2019 in Falmouth
Cummings, pictured outside his home in December 2023, is said to have warned a second referendum would spell disaster for Labour
However, according to a new book on Sir Keir’ rise to power, the fears of his closest aides have been revealed.
The Times reported that the chief of staff told one friend in the early phase of Starmer’s leadership that: ‘Keir acts like an HR manager, not a leader.’
He also took aim at Angela Rayner, desribing her to another friend: ‘Angela is political all the time, she manipulates people… all of her people from from Unite.
‘Keir doesn’t realise these are people he cannot do business with.’
McSweeney and his acolytes are even reported to have said: ‘Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR.’
