We should be wary of any claim that the British public is instinctively left-wing
According to a widely-shared article, the British electorate privately supports solidly left-wing policies such as railway renationalisation and the abolition of tuition fees, even though right-wing governments get elected.
Should we, then, assume that voters would seize the opportunity to have their instincts represented at elections by a Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn?
It goes without saying that the same opinion polls persistently overstated Labour’s popularity and suffered deep methodological problems, but this does not entirely discredit them. Individual findings are certainly questionable. Yes, polls showed that the public was opposed to the tuition fee rise and broadly supported Labour modestly reducing tuition fees to £6,000. (By the way, the same polls showed voters thought this would most benefit the well-off.)
But this is not the same as the electorate supporting Corbyn’s total abolition, which he has costed at £7bn. If pollsters offered this much stronger policy to the public with its price-tag attached, it is reasonable to assume reception would be more lukewarm.
We do have an alternative index of public opinion: the British Social Attitudes survey, held every year since 1983 and co-authored by pollster-of-the-moment John Curtice. The most recent BSA showed that a mere 21 per cent of people share Corbyn’s belief in the abolition of tuition fees. People might favour lower fees but they do not oppose them in principle.
Most pressing for the Left is the big picture: the proportion of people in favour of higher taxation and spending has collapsed from 63 per cent to just 37 per cent in the ten years from 2004 to 2014. Support for welfare spending has plummeted. Those who remember Blair-era clichés about a ‘social-democratic majority’ should consider whether they still stand up to scrutiny.
Stating the obvious, the reason we have polling data on most of these positions – fees, tax, Syria – is that Ed Miliband’s Labour Party explicitly represented them. When it came to a large poll of the electorate – a General Election with the highest turnout since 1997 – 49.5 per cent of voters plumped for the Tories or UKIP while 46.5 per cent went for a broad ‘left’ of Labour/SNP/Lib Dem/Green (39.0 per cent if you exclude the ambiguous Lib Dems).
This does not mean we should jettison all Ed’s policies, but it makes clear that being on the right side of public opinion on a basket of issues yields limited rewards.
The most important point is this: sharing some of voters’ positions does not mean you share their overall priorities. Labour’s position on Trident or railway ownership should always be debated but will not swing elections. While it is impossible to disaggregate all the reasons behind Labour’s electoral defeat, TUC-commissioned polling suggested many voters who considered voting Labour ultimately chose not to because of their perceived lack of economic competence.
This is the stubborn frame for policy discussions. It means that even when a policy like the 50 per cent tax rate polls well, many will not trust Labour with the decision. Meanwhile Osborne gets away with unpopular measures like abolishing student grants because – like it or not – people usually think his budgets are fair overall.
Even those who do not agree with the reasonable strategic case for making concessions on austerity should be wary of any claim that the British public is instinctively left-wing and sceptical about cherry-picking policy positions from opinion polls. Remember that UKIP can easily do exactly the same thing on immigration, overseas aid or inheritance tax. Most people are surely to the left of the Conservative frontbench on many issues, but Cameron can rule from the right as long as Labour keeps losing.
Labour’s big challenge is not to provide a voice for an imagined dormant left-wing majority. It needs instead to recognise the sheer dogged power of austerity thinking while also re-establishing itself among non-Labour voters as a plausible party of government.
Labour should not imagine public opinion is static and blindly follow the polls, but nobody should kid themselves that Corbyn would not have at least as hard a job persuading a sceptical public as he would uniting a divided party – both on many specific issues and certainly on the big picture.
Robert Priest is a lecturer in history at Royal Holloway University of London, although this article is written in his capacity as a Labour Party supporter
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25 Responses to “Are British voters really primed for Corbyn?”
Fouche101
Nice , subtle bitch slap.
Perry525
Cameron bought his election via Murdoch and his promise to cripple the
BBC and enable Sky. Prior to that Blair reached some unknown agreement
with Murdoch to be elected.
Seemingly Murdoch is the King maker via his TV and newspapers.
The question therefore is, what can Labour give Murdoch to gain his support and get elected.
Ted
“For the last 30 or 40 years, British people have been told that socialism (the left) is bad and Capitalism (the right) is good.”
Actually they’ve been told that since at least the invention of the printing press. I finally got around to reading “The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists” this year, (written in 1910) and every one of the working-class Tory/UKIP arguments is present and (in)correct:
Wikipedia: “The hero of the book, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all around him. In vain he tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view, but finds that their education has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their “betters”.”
Ted
“If only the electorate was as well educated as us”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html
Lamia
<iOne thing that never gets commented on in opinion polls and surveys, is
how the steady and relentless drip, drip, drip of right wing media
propaganda affects the thinking of the general public.
On the contrary, this is a complaint made over and over on the Guardian’s CiF by people who of course consider themselves immune to media propaganda, but bemoan its influence on the ‘brainwashed’ proles.
Mass media is in decline…
Yes, and has been for a decade or more. The Mail and Sun have never had a smaller grip on the public attention, and there are ample information sources from all political angles. Maybe, just maybe, there are things about Labour currently that the public has made its mind up about fairly independently… and doesn’t much like.
Or you can keep telling yourself that there is nothing wrong with Labour, and that if only the public weren’t brainwashed they’d think just like you.
They would be commenting on how they actually saw things for themselves, not on how they are usually told how things are.
Do you realise, despite your view of the masses as political zombies, there is quite wide awareness out there that many on the left despise them as ignorant, brainwashed, racist etcetera.? It’s one of the reasons Labour isn’t as popular as it might be. They know you think they are brainwashed fools – and not surprisingly they don’t like you and won’t vote for you.
How awful that non-Labour supporters even get to vote. If only it was left to people like yourself who know what is best for everyone, eh?