No Counsel for Complacency

A quick note on that poll of Labour members. It certainly makes for interesting reading. Jeremy leads Owen by 62% to 38% in the members section, with breakdowns of 70/30 among the £25ers, and 54/33 among affiliated trade unionists. Women are more likely to vote Jez than men (though he leads in both genders), and his greatest support is in the north. So much for the metropolitan brocialist label slung around disingenuously by Owen's fair weather friends.

The set of stats that interest me the most is the divide between members present before the Corbyn surge and the members that have joined since his campaign reached take off last year. The only lead Owen has is among the constituency of older members, who go for him 68/32. Meanwhile, the newer members are for Jezza 72/28, which climbs to 86% among those who joined the party since his assumption of office.

One shouldn't read too much in polls like this. Despite a sample size of 1,236 respondents and YouGov's best efforts at taking a representative sample, it's much more difficult to do than one mirroring the general population as, necessarily, the sample is drawn from Labour supporters who are already signed up to YouGov and take part in its surveys. How representative are they of the party selectorate? Putting that issue aside, while it is good news for the Jez camp and demoralising for Team Owen, the numbers should give the more thoughtful Jeremy supporters pause for, um, thought.

It's those 'old members' numbers, you see. "They don't matter", some might say, "the new members are the majority now." Yes, they are. But last year, the pre-election members also went for Jeremy. As we know, Jez was a smidgen short of an absolute majority among the full members, hoovering up 49.6%. Among the pre-election members, he still won a handsome plurality at 44% - so not much drift between them and the overall preference. If YouGov's new figures hold true then that support has collapsed, despite some evidence of relatively small numbers of anti-Jez members leaving the party. This is a cause for concern because that collapse could also spread to the newer members. In fact, that's what's Jeremy's opponents are banking on for another leadership challenge next summer.

Yes, it's true Jez's leadership was undermined from before the moment he took office, and that will continue. But his statecraft game isn't especially strong either, and that's something I'll return to once the contest is done. In the mean time, these figures should be taken as a warning, not a counsel for complacency.