Labour would crash to a worse defeat than it suffered under Michael Foot if the party enables Brexit, according to a huge new poll. YouGov surveyed a huge sample of 25000 people and the results show that the party risks losing millions of supporters in two scenarios under which it either votes through some form of compromise deal or fails to order MPs to oppose Brexit.
These findings are consistent with the Channel 4 poll in November which showed that a majority of its 20,000 sample backed Remain.
The fieldwork was done over the Christmas holidays and was completed on Friday, so this is about as fresh as you can get.
It is amazing that current voting intention shows only 34% support for Labour, the main opposition party, at a time when the government is driving us over a no deal cliff that could see shortages of food and medicine.
The poll suggests that Labour’s vote would crash to 26 per cent – and 16 points behind the Conservatives if its MPs vote with the Tories to bring about Brexit. That would bring about Labour’s worst result since the 1930s. Maybe that’s the real reason that Corbyn has gone cool on a motion of no confidence.
The YouGov poll shows a majority for Remain under any scenario in a new referendum on the deal vs remain and no deal.
People’s Vote – 53% in favour, 43% against (75% of Labour voters in favour)
Remain vs Leave 54% Remain 46% Leave
Remain vs No deal 58% Remain 42% No deal
Remain vs May’s deal 63% Remain 37% No deal
And yet Jeremy Corbyn refuses to attempt to force a general election and refuses to endorse a People’s Vote.
Theresa May has the absolute nerve to suggest that democracy is threatened if her deal doesn’t go through. That’s right, a minority government trying to force through something nobody wants by offering a no deal catastrophe that nobody wants as the only alternative is in some way acting in a democratic fashion. We can’t let them away with that!
We appear to be cursed by the worst Government and the worst opposition in history.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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As far as I am concerned the Tories should also be getting a severe trouncing for getting us into this disaster in the 1st place. NEITHER party should be allowed to run the country on a first past the post system that is now archaic, outlived its sell by date, has become unfit for purpose, defunct and any other words that fit. Oh, yes, destructive.
We are unlikely to benefit. In the Observer today there are pages on Brexit and the problems Labour face, not a mention of Liberal Democrats, or any Liberal Democrat MP.
There is a whole page on Caroline Lucas, a key leader in the Peoples Vote Campaign, backed by David Lammy and Anna Soubry. Reference is made to the Convention “Another vote is possible”, twelve speakers named, not a single Lib Dem. Caroline Lucas has been touring the country, visiting pro-Brexit areas.
She makes the point that the second referendum campaign should be run by young people rather than establishment figures.
Why are the Lib Dems ignored? Is it because we are being blacked by the press, or is there more to it than that. There is no visible life at the top of the party, there is no inspiration, no imagination.
Caroline Lucas is a charismatic leader, the right side of 60 and has no connection with the establishment. Everything our leadership lacks.
We need, within a week, to put together a pro peoples vote team including some younger members and start getting out on the stump and attracting attention.
We are cursed by the worst Government and opposition, but also the most ineffective Liberal Democrat party in history.
So ineffectual, David, that so many others are now in the place where we’ve been leading for 2.5 years…
Yes Caron, we can see where we are, but to the rest of the country we are invisible. Why not a sentence in the Observer today. It is no use being right if nobody knows you are right. There is a lot of work going on in the background, we are gaining members, we are gaining local councillors, but we are not inspiring the country, and nobody sees us as leading the place the country is moving towards.
@David Beckett
My sentiments entirely. Where ARE the Lib Dems and why are they not benefitting? Could it be that many voters find them too holier than thou, too strident, too obsessed with ‘campaigning’? Wake up, folks, try to be a bit more human and less certain. And try to acquire a sense of humour! As for Ms Lucas, she’s just too good to be true!
“Maybe that’s the real reason that Corbyn has gone cool on a motion of no confidence”
There is reason to believe that Jeremy Corbyn did not vote Remain in 2016, asleep on the job, etcetera, but he might be believed that the Labour strategy depends on the Commons meaningful vote on Theresa May’s package. She has given them more time to think, which they did not need, but the people whom John Major called ‘bastards’ have made up their minds and will vote against her in the Commons. She was interviewed on the Andrew Marr programme on BBC1 today. She glories in being “a bloody difficult woman”, but is allowing all government business to drift. She should, of course, sack the Transport Secretary for incompetence in the field of transport. She should also pay attention to addictive gambling and reinstate Tracey Crouch, at least as a junior minister, and empower her to tackle the issue.
We have strong and st.able. Yes we need a charismatic person to cause a stir. It is true that the effects of Brexit will hit the young..The young are the future as a result we do need new voices at the forefront with passion and verve, both are needed.
Why is it so hard for people to see that Corbyn is going for the triangulation tactic, as used by Blair and New Labour?
The Tory government is pushing through Brexit; in England and Wales few constituencies have anything other than Labour as the main challenger, so the thinking is ‘where else can anti-Brexiters go?’
Corbyn hopes that post Brexit, the emphasis will be on the repercussions of Brexit rather than on Brexit as the cause.
Two aspects are astonishing:
1. The palpable disregard of Labour Party members.
2. Labour Party members’s blind devotion to Corbyn.
The Observer is a Labour paper, why would it give coverage to Labours enemies ? Caroline Lucas, while very effective is widely seen as an Independent rather than speaking for The Green Parties; in any case Greens at 4% are less of a threat then Libdems on 9%.
The Peoples Vote campaign consistently downplay our contribution, for obvious reasons – we are already on board, Labour are the target audience & any mention of Libdems puts them off.
We have to stop expecting to be treated fairly.
We are mostly doing all we can in this situation, making slow, slow progress. That could all change very quickly but its not us that will change things.
We need a new image, that comes from a leader. We need a new leader, a new style, ideally a dynamic woman.
……………..And yet Jeremy Corbyn refuses to attempt to force a general election and refuses to endorse a People’s Vote……………
And how, pray, could he force a GE?
His call for a vote of no confidence in the PM (a PM who a third of her own party voted against in an internal no confidence motion) only succeeded in getting that same third of Tory MPs to state they would vote FOR her. A call for a vote of no confidence in the government would merelay add 10 DUP members to her support list and unite the Tory party.
Corbyn has called for May to go back to the EU and ask for a new deal including a customs union;. Such a deal would get even less support from her own party and is an impossible ask.
May will refuse and IMO that will be the time that Labour will back the call for another vote.
LidDem fox’s shot.
@ Paul Barker “The Observer is a Labour paper, why would it give coverage to Labours enemies ?”
Oh no it’s not. It’s always been a traditionally a left of centre party with Lib Dem sympathies. If it’s not at the moment that’s more to do with the Lib Dems’ performance than any prejudice on the Observer’s part – so stop kidding yourself.
If the party stopped pretending that ‘flying the flag’ was a serious political activity, took it’s coat off to get stuck in with good radical policies and an appeal to the broad width of popular opinion then things might, just might, change. Stop blaming the press for the Party’s own self inflicted current situation.
@ David Raw
Correct. There are two few people in this party prepared to face facts, they see everything as satisfactory. It is not new in this party. I remember a Spring Conference in Sheffield fighting NHS reforms, that Nick had tried to bounce through on the nod. We then had years of MPs behaving as if nothing was wrong, they ended up as lemmings. We need a fresh radical approach, not looking at everything through a rosy looking glass. Jo, Charles, Paddy, where are you now?
David Raw:
Given that the pressing issue is Brexit and that there is a palpable risk of hardship that would dwarf anything seen in the last decade, what would be your radical suggestions?
The obvious one is to abandon the folly of Brexit (which is more or less the Party’s position).
Of course The Observer is a Labour supporting newspaper I do not think any of the national newspapers actively support the Lib Dems or give them credit when they are right on certain issues ie BREXIT!!
“The Observer is a Labour paper”. Are you sure? I seem to remember a story doing the rounds after the 1987 General Election that its Editorial on the last Sunday before the election that it was coming out for the Alliance; but was threatened by a strike from the print unions if it did. Mind you, that was when the third party was still nudging 20%.
Caron’s headline starts
“Biggets poll since the EU rferendum says ……..”
The biggest poll since the referendum was the general election, in which both the main winning parties promised Brexit.
We need…. Layla. Moran
David Evershed:
You did not complete that: The biggest poll since the referendum was the general election, in which both the main winning parties promised Brexit and a crock of gold from the end of the rainbow.
We all know their promises were crock – or are you one of those that continues to believe this tripe?
@ David Evershed,
It is worth reading the findings of the British Election Study. It explains why Labour scooped up so many ‘remainers’ .
‘General Election 2017: Brexit dominated voters’ thoughts.’
BBC News August 2017. Available on the internet.
A general election is not a referendum.
David Becket is right. Yes people are coming on to our ground (PV) but we have no national profile on it and so we are not getting the credit for being right. I’m sure part of this is down to the traditional media bias ignoring us but I’m afraid I also think we need to raise our game.
One question: Do any of us think there a grid somewhere in the party HQ with a detailed programme of speeches, events, articles, interviews etc. all mapped out between now and 29 March, with local strategies co-ordinated to roll out integrated messages alongside the national ones? If so, I’m happy to eat my words.
@ Martin I agree Brexit is a pressing issue and should be resisted because of the consequences for those at the wrong end of what is now a very unequal society. I also believe opposing Brexit has become the party’s one trick pony policy to the exclusion of everything else.
Regardless of Brexit, I would pursue a raft of policies towards a less unequal society – which I’m afraid Liberal Democrat policy between 2010-15 tended to exacerbate rather than to mitigate. This has been my stance for over sixty years as a party member – and until 2007 it tended to be the main stream party view.
You say, unkindly, my view on Lib Dem MP’s receiving knighthoods is ‘childish’. I disagree. It never happened in the pre-Steel days but has gradually become almost the norm since then. I contend that accepting a knighthood as a run of the mill M.P. reflects a certain view of the nature of society, one’s place in it, and the level of one’s commitment to a more democratic society. Public perceptions do matter and I have heard many adverse comments on the doorstep in constituencies where it happened.
Fifty seven Lib Dem MP’s were elected in 2010. By 2015 there were twice as many ‘knights of the realm’ as the number of women – a quarter of all the male MPs had been so ‘honoured’. To put it mildly this is perceived by the general public as excessive. It has damaged perceptions of the party. I happen to chair a food bank founded as a consequence of some of the policies supported by this party. The last thing I would ever want is a gong to celebrate the different ranks of a non-existent Empire.
It seems to me that Corbyn’s Labour is a coalition of the university left (both students and academics), the charity sector, the theoretical middle class dinner party Marxists, public sector middle management, public sector working class, unionised manual skilled and unskilled working class, the low paid and unemployed.
Corbyn is clearly a Brexiteer, but the Labour party position is sheer triangulation. They don’t want to offend the Remain voting university and charity sectors, whilst at the same time not offending organised labour in manual work.
Is there any way the Lib Dems can win back the university vote and charity sector? I don’t see the party having much luck with any of the other groups – we are not a party of statism, luddism or protectionism – there is absolutely no point in trying to appeal to the pro-POA/Unite/RMT/ASLEF Brexit voter.
David Raw:
I think my criticism of a comment was on another thread, but if you find it, I think you will see it was about government ‘limos’. I do not think it was about knighthoods which get doled out as sweeties to any passing John Redwood, but may have been about peerages.
A look at press releases from our MPs and others shows that the Party is addressing many issues, however almost all the major ones are inevitably affected by Brexit.
What would be a few of your key policies for a less unequal society? How well could they fare in a post Brexit Britain?