Over 10,000 people were at Corbyn’s visit to the North East

With the snap general election this Thursday the turn out for Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to Gateshead was colossal – with 10,000 people gathering to see him speak despite the poor weather.

A source told the Tab Newcastle: “Estimates are that there were 10,000 people there yesterday and I can definitely attest to that. They told us to arrive at 5.30 and the speeches would start at 6.30, so my friend and I thought getting there at 6/6.15 would be alright…. we were wrong.

“Turns out people had been queuing up all day to be the first in to see him, by the time we arrived at about 5 past 6 they were telling us the enormous space outside the Sage was already full and that we had to enter an overspill car park for excess fans down the hill. I say ‘excess’, there was probably about 5,000 people in the overspill area.

“I heard one bloke tell his mate he’d been to a Theresa May rally down south and she didn’t even fill a theatre so to have Corbyn easily fill up in the entire Quayside says a lot! There were various speeches by North East Labour MPs before Corbyn came on and delivered an electrifying speech which ignited the audience.

“Many people hung on to his every word, clapping and supporting almost every syllable. Corbyn reminded the North East crowd about how successive Tory governments have successfully decimated and ignored the North East region – selling off jobs and industries in the 1980s and, more recently, cutting away at vital public services and police services at a time where we need increased security.

“Corbyn also reached out to the students in the crowd, of which there were thousands, to remind them that Labour cares for them unlike the Tories. He mentioned his scrapping of tuition fees and scrapping of zero hours contracts. Despite the rain, the mood was still lit, 10/10 would vote Labour.”

The crowd was a mix of students and locals which embodied the ethos of Labour’s policies being for ‘the many’. With a promise of scrapping tuition fees many students are on Corbyn’s side and it seems that this election has made young voters more politically inclined.  Whilst Corbyn is drawing bigger crowds than Theresa May, recent polling appears to suggest that the gap between them is narrowing.