British public backs David Cameron over Jeremy Corbyn 'terrorist-sympathiser' attack

Jeremy Corbyn's camp claimed David Cameron was "rattled" when he accused Labour's new leader of hating Britain and being a sympathiser for terrorists, but it seems the UK electorate agree with the prime minister's scathing comments. A poll from Survation, of more than 1,000 people on 7 October, found that 38% of voters backed Cameron's attack on Corbyn and 31% disagreed with the remarks.

The survey, which was commissioned by The Huffington Post UK, comes after Cameron singled out Corbyn in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. "Thousands of words have been written about the new Labour leader. But you only really need to know one thing: he thinks the death of Osama bin Laden was a 'tragedy'," the prime minister said.

"No. A tragedy is nearly 3,000 people murdered one morning in New York. A tragedy is the mums and dads who never came home from work that day. A tragedy is people jumping from the towers after the planes hit. We cannot let that man inflict his security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology on the country we love."

A spokesman for Corbyn later claimed that the comments were a "sure sign" that Cameron was "rattled" by the left-winger's victory in the Labour leadership contest and the party's surge in membership, with more than 150,000 apparently joining Labour in the wake of the general election.

"The fact that David Cameron used his speech to make personal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn are a sure sign that he is rattled by the re-energisation of the Labour Party," the spokesman said. "With cuts to tax credits and a continued failure on housing, his claim that the Conservatives are the party of working people is being exposed."

But Corbyn has come under continued scrutiny for referring to the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah as "friends". Meanwhile, his close ally and shadow chancellor John McDonnell was forced to apologise for praising the "bravery" of the IRA in 2003. "If I gave offence – and I clearly have – from the bottom of my heart I apologise. I apologise," McDonnell said on 17 September on BBC 1's Question Time.

The Conservatives have centered their attacks on Corbyn and his team around the issues of national and economic security. The party launched a US-style political advertisement on YouTube on 28 September, which argued that Labour is "now a serious threat to Britain's economic security".