LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn has said that should he be elected prime minister, his government would invest millions in improving the South West rail network — including potential alternatives to the maligned Dawlish line.

Speaking with the BBC’s political editor Martyn Oates on last weekend’s episode of Sunday Politics, Mr Corbyn revealed his surprising suggestion to electrify rail lines connecting Plymouth and Exeter to London.

The Labour leader also spoke of providing alternatives to the Dawlish line, which was cut in the storms of February 2014.

Those storms left Plymouth cut off for months. Since then the sea wall has been strengthened and the line reinstated.

Since the Dawlish line collapse, campaigners have been fighting for alternative inland routes to improve the resilience, speed and efficiency of the region’s rail links, including the resurrection of the northern line linking Exeter and Plymouth through Okehampton and Tavistock.

Mr Corbyn backed work to strengthen and protect the Dawlish route — as have campaigners fighting to resurrect the Okehampton line — but he said: ‘We also have to have an all weather bypass route in the future. I’ve looked at all the studies and it seems to me there has to be an inland diversion because that resilience work on Dawlish is not going to last forever.

Mr Corbyn added: ‘The likelihood of exceptional 100 year storms is becoming more and more likely. Look at the problems the South West economy had because of the Dawlish closure.’

Conservative MPs dismissed Mr Corbyn’s plans as fantasy. Speaking to the BBC on the same programme, Plymouth Conservative MP Johnny Mercer said: ‘If you believe a single word that comes out of Jeremy Corbyn’s mouth then that’s what you would think. By the time of the next election you would be getting a spaceship ride to London.’