The labour party has abandoned the working-class claims darren grimes

Polling by Lord Ashcroft, conducted on the same day as the December General Election, concluded 46.5 percent of social groups C2DE voted Conservative, versus 33.5 percent for Labour. Social

groups C2DE, which includes manual workers, are often used as a proxy for the working-class. Speaking to Express.co.uk Mr Grimes said: “I think the Labour Party is massively moving away from

the British people’s opinions on many things. “London is just so out of touch with the views out there in the rest of the country and that’s mirrored by the party of London, which is

Labour. “On crime, on terror, or Brexit, on going full steam ahead to net zero [greenhouse gas emissions] without thinking about the consequences for the poorest people in this country. “On

so many issues I think Labour are completely out of touch with the views of working men and women in the country. “They are the party now of middle-class professionals and students, that’s

it basically.” Labour was soundly defeated at the December 2019 general election, losing 60 seats. In response Jeremy Corbyn announced he was standing down as Labour leader, and has since

been replaced by former shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer. The Lord Ashcroft polling showed the 46.6 percent of the C2DE [working-class] vote the Tories took was more than the 44.5

percent of the ABC1 [middle to upper class] vote they secured. READ MORE: BORIS HAS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT FROM 'CORBYN TRIBUTE ACT' STARMER Mr Grimes commented: “The Labour Party

under Keir Starmer represents London’s coffee houses. “They’ve got London in the bag, they’ve got universities cities, they’ve got students, they’ve got the extinction rebellion crowd,

that’s basically its core constituency now. “That’s not an election winning platform. It will get you the likes of Durham City, Cambridge, Oxford and London but it’s not going to get you the

places Labour lost in 2019. “To me Keir Starmer is just another technocrat like the likes of Ed Miliband. I don’t know what he stands for. I know he’s got a really strong quiff but I can’t

tell you what the politics or ideology of the man are. It seems to me that his quiff is a bit stronger than his politics.” Sir Keir was elected Labour leader between February and April 2020

with 62.5 percent of the vote. Mr Grimes claimed the detachment between the Labour Party and working-class he identifies can be traced back to the Tony Blair years. He stated: “I think you

can pinpoint that to the managerialism of New Labour, so Blair basically. “What Blair did is he injected PPE [politics, philosophy and economics] graduates from Oxford into all of these

seats. “A lot of these people were completely removed from the lives of the people they were representing and I think that chasm has only grown wider and wider. “It’s the Conservative and

Unionist Party now that represents working people in this country. “I never thought that would happen back when I first became politically aware.”