Top pollster Stephan Shakespeare will be analysing the state of the parties exclusively for the Standard during the General Election campaign. Today the CEO and founder of YouGov says the latest evidence indicates many traditional Labour voters are preparing to ‘hold their nose’ and back the party again despite doubts over Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
YouGov is tracking thousands of people who voted Labour in 2015 and measuring where their votes are going now. In mid-April 24 per cent of previous Labour voters said they were uncommitted to any party — but at the beginning of last week that had dropped to 13 per cent as they switched back, accounting for the drop in the Tory lead over the period.
Corbyn-doubting voters who previously supported Labour were starting to ready themselves for holding their noses on June 8 and voting Labour after all, reasonably secure in assuming Corbyn can’t win anyway.
Labour may therefore turn out to be more resilient than Thursday’s local elections suggested. A safe assumption has now turned into something close to certainty that Mrs May will stay in No 10, with an increased majority, and we can also be reasonably sure Jeremy Corbyn will not be leader for long. Weirdly, this helps him get more votes. Mainstream Labour voters who feel unrepresented by Corbyn can now follow Tony Blair’s advice to vote Labour even though he evidently believes May would be the country’s better leader. For Blair, the issue is creating a strong post-Corbyn opposition to hold the Government to account. Our evidence suggests this idea could gain traction.
So while the general election is unlikely to bring a change of government, it will certainly lead to a change in the nature of British politics. What kind of opposition will shape up against a powerful Tory government? Will it be weak and fractured, or an effective coalition? What kind of majority, and what kind of opposition, will structure the counterbalance to a powerful presidential Theresa May?
The long-term trend of politics has been the decline of voter identification with any party. The Brexit referendum sped that disruption of traditional loyalties. The movement of votes to safe-seeming Theresa May is not a return of sheep to the fold but a response to uncertainty and an opposition with no credibility. But does the electorate really want a Tory landslide or an effective democracy, and if the latter, will it find a way to vote for it? We will analyse this over coming weeks.
