Smith leads among pre-2015 members
Jeremy Corbyn is on course to win the Labour leadership with 62 per cent of the vote — an even greater share than last year’s 59.9 per cent — according to a new YouGov poll for The Times.
This is the first poll of the Labour leadership selectorate and the 24-point margin (excluding don’t knows) will come as a major blow to the Owen Smith campaign.
The results also show the depth of the divisions between different segments of the Labour Party. Notably, 68 per cent of members who joined before May 2015 support Owen Smith.
However, 450,000 people have joined Labour since then and, despite the NEC’s decision to exclude those who have joined since January, Corbyn is in the lead in all voting segments — full members, registered supporters and union affiliates.
Inevitably, this has led many commentators to discuss the possibility of a centre-left breakaway, with 39 per cent of those polled expecting the party to split after the leadership election.
If that happens, 23 per cent of Smith supporters say they would join the breakaway group. But even if it doesn’t, 29 per cent of his backers say they will leave the Labour Party if Corbyn wins.
However, these people appear to be motivated by opposition to Corbyn, rather than any great enthusiasm for Smith.
The challenger’s campaign will be worried by the news that just 33 per cent of those who intend to vote for him, and 12 per cent of the overall selectorate, believe that he can win the next general election.
This is a severe blow to a campaign built on a guarantee of electability.
See also: Jeremy Corbyn is behind Theresa May among Labour supporters
4 Responses to “Poll: Corbyn will hold leadership with increased mandate”
Just Cann
The 172 MPS who voted no confidence in the party leader have shown their contempt for the labour party members. Corby will win again. The party members are not going to allow the labour MPs to sabotage the labour party again. The labour party belongs to the members on one member one vote basis. An MP is no more important than a member. One MP equals one member.
Members want the whole of the NEC to be elected by one member one vote process. The labour party National Executive Committee (NEC ) are protecting the unreasonable MPs from being held to account by members, with NEC threats to suspend and expel any member who challenges the MPs to be accountable. NEC has shown contempt for the labour party members. 130,000 members were excluded from voting. Also the NEC have unreasonably suspended and expelled part members without giving them detailed reasons for the suspensions and expulsions. Members are now demanding that all of the NEC should be elected by one member one vote no matter how much the MPs and those who support the sabotaging MPS will try to avoid it, members will succeed to have the whole of the NEC elected by one member one vote.
Presently under the labour party rules if the members wish they can replace MP with the trigger ballot and the bad way the 172 MPs have behaved to bring the labour party into disrepute, members will make sure that the trigger ballot rule is used to subject these MPs to reselection contest against other candidates. One thing all members will never forget is that in each Branch members can hold a no confidence vote in their MP anytime because the precedence of no confidence vote has been set by the 172 MPs when they held no confidence vote in Corbyn the leader. The no confidence vote in the MPs could start anytime from now to the general election.
Imran Khan
The Labour MPs are responsible to their electorate and Parliament before they are to the party members. It’s as simple as that. A likely scenario is that if there are large scale de-selections for which the opportunity will be the boundary changes then many de-selected MPs will stand as independents and either win against the official Corbyite candidates or split the vote so that the Tories win. We are looking at a Tory majority of a hundred seats or more.
Danny Dayus
So, in the event of large numbers of of MPs being effectively deselected by their own local Parties, during the reorganisation of candidates into changed constituency boundaries, and assuming that Corbyn wins reselection as leader, Imran Khan suggests that it is “likely” that many MPs will stand as independents against Labour, splitting the vote and returning a super-majority for the Tories. I hope that anyone who has the interests of Labour at heart would condemn the very possibility of such betrayal by MPs.
I do see the reasoning of such people. Politicians are inherently likely to be so full of their own self-worth that they think that all people who voted for them must necessarily share all of their views. They would, of course, be blindly misled by their own ego and ideology. The fact is that they received a mandate from however many voters, not because they are God’s gift to the poor, but to a greatly practical extent because each represented a political Party that they supported. All Labour MPs implicitly accepted such as fact when they applied for selection as candidates, and also when they stood under the Labour banner during the election campaign. Otherwise they would, or should, have stood as independents last time. Anyone who says otherwise is being disingenuous. One cannot have one’s large annual cake and trash the bakery at the same time.
Another cruder, but perhaps more salient simile comes to mind. The coarse amongst us (myself included, it seems) sometimes debate as to whether it is best to have ones detractors inside pissing out, or outside pissing in. However, There’s never any doubt over the stupid dysfunctionality of having them both inside AND pissing in. However refined their language, Labour Party members know that to be the case, and when they see the people that they voted to represent them apparently conspiring to systematically undermine the Labour Party that they hold dear – an organisation of millions throughout history that is politically more important than any one of us – such members would be entirely justified in deciding to find another person to represent their interests in Parliament.
MPs may try to counter that they are representatives – not delegates – and that they have a right (even an obligation to their own integrity) to follow their own views. Unfortunately, such MPs would be wrong again, since they would be holding the contradictory positions of both claiming obligation to voters’ wishes AND the right to vote according to their conscience. They would, in other words, be stuffing themselves at the trashed bakery, whilst pissing on themselves. Perhaps life inside the “Westminster Bubble” enables such strange para-logical twists and turns. But, for the sake of decency alone, I hope that such MPs would stand down in advance of such actions.
Mike Bartlett
It is amazing how tortuous the language of the righteous can become when attempting to construct pseudo-logical arguments in favour of irrational believe. It is even worse when the true object of the author’s prose is an exercise in vanity.