Jeremy Corbyn is England’s answer to the SNP, Britain's youngest MP Mhairi Black has declared.
The new Labour leader will be able to harness the passion that swept the SNP to victory in Scotland, Ms Black said.
Mhairi Black, who at 21 is the youngest MP in hundreds of years, revealed that she has had “quite a few” conversations with Mr Corbyn despite being met with general “hostility” from other Labour MPs.
The newly-elected labour leader is the only person who would be able to “tap in” to the passion that delivered the SNP landslide in Scotland at the general election, she said.
Despite his unpopularity in his own party and a difficult first week in post she says that Mr Corbyn will be able to harness the “surge of support” for policies such as scrapping Trident and ending austerity that she says gave the SNP a landslide victory in Scotland – wiping out Labour.
Although expecting “hostile English people” on arrival to London, she said she found many voters desperate to back the policies of the SNP but did not have the chance. These are the voters Mr Corbyn will attract, she said.
She told Channel 4 News: “I have had quite a few conversations with Jeremy Corbyn. As time has gone on they [other Labour MPs] have become much more friendly.
“One of the problems I think that Labour has had is that it has misunderstood the SNP and where the SNP are coming from and why people voted SNP, but I think that now they are starting to realise that we don’t have horns on our heads and on actually a lot of things we are in agreement.”
She added: “I think the reason SNP got such a surge of support is because we listened to people and we were saying things that people believed in which is no to austerity, no to Trident and such like – so when we arrived down here in London instead of being met by hostile English people we were surrounded by people who were saying we wish you were here because we don’t want austerity either.”
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage said Mr Corbyn had "completely failed" his supporters by giving in to pressure and declaring support for a continued European Union membership, Nigel Farage has claimed.
The Ukip leader and anti-EU campaigner added that Mr Corbyn will also struggle to effectively scrutinise the Government over EU negotiations.
The new Labour leader gave his clearest indication yet on Thursday that his party will campaign in favour of the EU in the in/out referendum promised by David Cameron by the end of 2017.
During a phone-in with LBC radio, Mr Farage said Mr Corbyn privately thinks the EU is "awful".
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