Corbyn has already won back nearly one in ten 2015 Tory voters | alittleecon
A poll came out yesterday which was the basis for this story in the Independent “Jeremy Corbyn ‘loses fifth of Labour voters’”. The poll found that 20% of people who voted Labour in 2015 said they were less likely to vote Labour again with Corbyn as leader. So is it fair to say that a fifth of Labour voters have already abandoned the party? Of course not!
The question asked if they would be more or less likely to vote Labour with Corbyn as leader. If you say less though, it doesn’t mean you will change the way you vote, you could just have changed from ‘absolutely will vote for them’ to ‘almost certainly will vote for them’. If the Indy’s headline was fair, then so is mine because 8% of Conservative voters said Corbyn being leader made them more likely to vote Labour. I could also have made the title “Over a third of SNP voters now support Labour”, or “More than a quarter of remaining Lib Dems to vote Labour with Corbyn”.
Source: Corbyn has already won back nearly one in ten 2015 Tory voters | alittleecon
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If that report is correct could we have a general consensus on the specific reasons why they would be less likely to vote Labour and how many of Corbyn’s policies they don’t like as opposed to those that they do like? I believe most people are more likely to vote for him than ever before and if they don’t they will be electing another Tory disaster yet again.
Starting with the 80% of Labour MPs who refused to vote for Corbyn….it is beyond time that we cleaned out the Augean Stables, get the Tory Lite scum out.
The ultimate tests are the London Mayoral elections and the Scottish Parliament elections next year. In the last 4 London Mayoral elections, the winning party has gone on to win the following general election. If Labour can make inroads in Scotland – their traditional stronghold – that shows they are winning back their core voter.
Hi AndyH,
I wonder how homogeneous ‘their core voter’ actually is. That aside bearing in mind the width and degree of hostile news making that has taken(ing) place it’s more of note that only 20% state they are only ‘less likely’ to vote Labour. To my way of thinking Corbyn’s strengths are the policies the Labour party will now be pushing to implement and how they are arrived at. In that they will genuinely aim to make the vast majority of the British people better off and involve more people in making these policies. These concepts have not been welcomed by the rich and powerful who are used to having the run of the elected government and the opposition. As such the difficulty will be getting that message out while also not seeing Corbyn and the Labour party so tarnished by the mainstream media tycoons that nobody will take either him or the policies seriously. So those of us who agree with these policies need to help that happen – of course, in such a way that friends, work colleagues and family do not ‘switch off’ or avoid our company! I will not be adopting the Socratic method when trying to win new converts or nudge them towards a better understanding of how British society works.
Shaunt
I think it’s worth pointing out that no labour leader can win the next election – the maths is just not in their favour – the issue therefore isn’t can Corbyn win but can he make enough gains to force a hung parliament or at least prevent another five year term.
What, so a Conservative majority of 12 is unbeatable?
Unless the Labour Party recovers significantly in Scotland, they require a larger swing in England and Wales, than in 1997: http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2015/06/why-the-left-voice-we-now-have-in-the-leadership-contest-is-so-badly-needed/ The proposed reduction of 50 seats will doubtless gerrymander the new constituencies in the Conservative Party’s favour, with a chunk of labour seats disappearing. If Meacher’s figures are correct, Labour needs to win 106 seats in 2020. Winning outright is unlikely – but a deal with Sturgeon is more than doable (and the fact this will annoy Murdoch and the Daily Mail adds a certain sweetness…)
Of course, the Tories won’t be in a position to win many seats if they are disgraced.
It is not the majority of 12 that they need to overturn for a win, but the need to turn 232 Labour seats actually won into 326 to gain a clear majority of 1. That will be a more difficult task after the constituency boundary changes. Anything less than 326 will mean a coalition for Labour. The Conservative majority of 12 is actually 16 in practice as Sinn Fein have 4 seats, but have never come to Parliament. If push comes to shove the DUP and UUP are unlikely to vote against the Conservatives. They have 8 and 2 seats respectively. So in terms of a confidence vote, Cameron has a majority of 26.
Unless Labour take back large numbers of Scottish seats, an overall majority looks nigh on impossible .
Looked.
The wind’s blowing in a different direction now.
Fingers crossed for a string of disastrous by-elections!
Disastrous for the Tories, would that be?
Absolutely! The Major government’s majority of 20 was chipped away in 4 years…
Thanks, Mike for helping those of us who are less adept at dealing with Media sophistry.
The tory majority is only 12, if Corbyn does a good job and wins more people around, he can easily and quickly erode that number!