Is the Labour Party heading for an existential crisis?

If newspaper headlines are to be believed it has been a hard summer for the Labour Party. It has apparently been overtaken by “Trots, Stalinists and communists” (Joan Ryan)¹; is led by a “fucking racist and anti-Semite” (Margaret Hodge)² and has unleashed “dogs” to “purge” the Party of those who disagree with the Leadership (Chuka Umunna)³. It has been described as “institutionally racist” (Chuka again)⁴ and of “tolerating anti-Semitism” (Board of Jewish Deputies)⁵.

Members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) are openly discussing breaking away to form a new centrist party.⁶

There has been a relentless campaign of negative stories around Labour and, in particular, Jeremy Corbyn. 

Despite a relentless campaign of negativity polls over the period May - September show Labour's vote share remaining steady at around 40%. Even if the polls are inaccurate as they probably are the trend is clear, the negative stories are not damaging Labour sufficiently for it to be regarded as crisis territory.
If there is a “crisis” it is grounded in a clash between the PLP and the membership. It was widely expected, particularly among the PLP and even his own supporters, that when Jeremy Corbyn stood for leader he would lose, as left candidates had been wont to do for almost the entire history of the Party. As The Guardian reported he was a 100-1 outsider.⁷ When he won it was to the dismay of the established power group in the Party who had expected a centrist candidate to emerge to steady a floundering ship. That there was no stomach for unity in the PLP was evidenced by first, the resignations from the Shadow Cabinet⁸, then the vote of no confidence (proposed incidentally by Margaret Hodge)⁹ and then the leadership challenge.¹⁰ All of these were desperate attempts by a group of parliamentarians to reassert their authority. All failed. 

One can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for Corbyn’s enemies within the PLP that faced with an overwhelming vote of no confidence he refused to simply step aside.¹¹ 

The most significant reason, however, why the PLP’s campaign to oust Jeremy Corbyn was doomed to failure was that they seriously under-estimated the mood amongst the Party’s membership. The second leadership campaign saw Jeremy Corbyn overwhelmingly endorsed winning 61.8% of the vote (up from 59.5% a year earlier)¹². Although the defeated right wing of the party vowed to be loyal to the result, the fact was that they were licking their wounds safe in the knowledge that Labour would be wiped out in the General Election and that would have to trigger a leadership contest in which the members would surely have come to their senses¹³. It was, after all, around this time that Tony Blair reminded all those saps who had twice supported Jeremy Corbyn that they needed a heart transplant.¹⁴ 

As is now well documented the General Election did not go the way the right had planned or hoped¹⁵. The face of MP Stephen Kinnock on election night gave the game away¹⁶. The last thing they wanted was Labour wiping out the Tories majority and receiving the biggest vote since 2001, and only marginally less than had won the 1997 General Election for Tony Blair.¹⁷ 

Much has been written about the General Election and it is true that Theresa May perhaps ran one of the worst election campaigns in living history, but the reason why Labour was able to prove the polls wrong (apart from the obvious deficiencies in the polls themselves) was that for the first time in memory there was an organisation on the ground – Momentum – with the skills and numbers necessary to target swing seats.¹⁸ It was not enough to secure a Labour victory, but it wiped the smiles off the faces of the Tories and the Labour right. For a while after the General Election it seemed that the daggers had been put to one side. Everybody was on team Corbyn now.¹⁹

But, it is necessary to see this from the perspective of those who had held office in the Blair governments, those who saw themselves as pragmatic, rather than idealistic socialists, and those who still held to the shibboleth that left-wing policies could not win an election, to understand why that loyalty could not last^20 21 22. Having controlled and dominated the party for, nigh on, thirty years they were never going to give it up without a fight. It was not just that they thought Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters were deluded or fanciful, it goes much deeper than that. It is a hostility to the left and ideas which they see as vote losers. The battle which has been fought in the press and broadcast media over the summer has been waged not simply to undermine Jeremy Corbyn but, in their terms, to save the Labour Party²³.

Jeremy Corbyn's achilles heel was thought to be his foreign policy interventions, particularly those supporting the rights of Palestinians ²⁴

Although the Labour right continue to dominate the PLP, their grip on the party apparatus has been severely weakened ²⁵. 

During the current round of NEC elections as it became obvious that the membership were going to overwhelmingly support the Momentum slate, the tactics became increasingly desperate. The leaking of a taped recording of lifetime socialist and anti-racist campaigner Peter Willsman to the Jewish Chronicle²⁶ and the campaign video produced by the Progress slate had all the hallmarks of the ‘dark propaganda’ which had been a feature of New Labour’s term in office. They backfired as the Momentum #JC9 were all elected, albeit after Momentum withdrew support from Peter Willsman. 

Labelling Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as anti-Semites appears a desperate act of a grouping who cannot win politically or democratically. Whether there is anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is the subject of debate. What is certain is that ordinary voters, as they struggle to make ends meet, don’t seem to care too much about a wreath laid five years ago. 

If there is an existential crisis in the Labour Party, it exists within the PLP. Ordinary members continue to be excited by a programme which retains the support of a large number of ordinary voters²⁷. It is those members who have recently supported no confidence votes against sitting MPs who they feel no longer represent them²⁸. To some in the PLP any attempt to remove a sitting MP translates as "bullying'²⁹. The truth is most voters could not name their MP, they are voting for a party and its policies.

MPs are the embodiment of the policies of a party. Of course, they are representatives not delegates and should also be allowed to disagree and vote with their conscience. But, when an MP no longer supports the values of the party, for example when they describe a party whose members have been at the forefront of anti-racist initiatives as “institutionally racist” then they should either move aside or be prepared to be moved aside by those who campaign to get them elected in the first place. The existential crisis amounts to a changing of the guard as the right of the party are being replaced by those who represent what the party is now, not what it was twenty years ago. 

The changing moods of Brexit, or why we shouldn't necessarily believe YouGov

A couple of recent polls have given renewed vigour to those campaigning for a second referendum. In one case it was suggested that 53% of the British public were now in favour of remaining (1); whilst another found that 112 leave voting constituencies had changed their minds and would now support remain (2).

This has led to a flurry of articles in newspapers, and activity on social media suggesting that the mood has changed and that the logical conclusion of this change was that the demand for a “People’s Vote” should be conceded by the Government. In addition, campaigners for a second referendum have been targeting the alleged ambiguity of the Labour Party and suggest that it would be in their electoral interest to back a ‘People’s Vote’(3).

There are a number of issues which those supporting the People’s Vote campaign need to address. First of these is that in order to have a second referendum it would be necessary to get a vote through Parliament. It is not clear why the Government, which has not wavered in its support for Brexit, would support such a vote. Indeed, they seem convinced that the public are now fully supportive of Brexit (nobody they have spoken to in their local Conservative clubs has told them otherwise presumably!) (4). 

Not much enthusiasm for a second referendum here

Second, at no time did anybody suggest that the referendum was the first of many. Indeed, the literature put out by the Government at the time made it quite clear that the referendum result would be honoured. Therefore, the case for a second referendum on the basis of a shift in public attitude (if indeed there has been a shift) has no legal basis, even if it is desirable. 

Third, many remain supporters have claimed that people did not really understand what they were voting for in the first referendum. Given the complexities of unravelling the relationship with the EU this is undoubtedly true. But this then begs the question, how would we be any better informed in another referendum?

Finally, the shift demanded of Labour is contrary to Labour’s agreed conference position and seems designed as much to embarrass the Labour leadership, given those behind it (Peter Mandelson (5), Alistair Campbell (6), Chuka Ummana (7)), as to achieve a second referendum. This is not to say that Brexit is a good idea, as I have stated previously (8), whilst I don't want to be a bad loser, I'm still far from convinced that leaving the EU is anything but a disaster waiting to happen. The Government's appalling inability to negotiate a deal is evidence that so-called 'Project Fear' is fast becoming 'Project Reality'.

Perhaps more importantly the view that the public mood has changed is not as clear cut as those wanting a second referendum (based on the fact that they think they would win, which surely is a good reason for the other side to frustrate that wish) would have us believe. The reasoning of the People's Vote advocates is that as Brexit gets closer, leave voters are starting to see the error of their ways and switch sides. The polls seem to support this, though whether Brexiters were ever as unrealistic as they are sometimes painted is not clear. 

Roger Scully (of the Wales Governance Centre), who has been conducting interviews in leave areas, told me in a video interview that:

“the final major thing that we found is a strong sense amongst many of these leave voters at least that some short term difficulties with Brexit some short term costs had already been priced into their decision. They were expecting this but they still thought that in the long term Brexit would be worth it.” (9)

The poll which gave remain 53% was based on a larger than usual YouGov sample of 10,121 (if you want to see the original files they are here: (10).

If you study the results you will find that the 53-47 figure is calculated by excluding those who say they would not vote and those who say they don’t know. The figures including those are 46-40 remain, which is roughly in line with the previous month’s results (carried out with a much more regular YouGov sample of 1,725) which were 47-41 in favour of remain. In this sense, perhaps Peter Kellner, has a point when he says:

“If these findings emerged from a conventional poll of 1,000-2,000 respondents, findings relating to sub-samples should be regarded with caution.
"But this exceptionally large 10,000 sample survey contains more than 2,700 current Labour supporters, leaving no room for doubt about the size of the majority among them for a new public vote.”

His main point is that Labour supporters in the poll are more enthusiastic for a second referendum than Conservatives. This is not too much of a shock since Labour supporters voted remain in quite large numbers, but Labour’s members rejected the call for a second referendum when it was made by Owen Smith as part of the leadership campaign (11). Moreover, Labour’s 2017 Conference voted to support the current position on Brexit which is to respect the referendum result (12), although the possibility of a second referendum was not entirely ruled out (13).

If the goal of a second referendum is to reverse Brexit then it is important it is based on credible evidence. Although, Peter Kellner, a former Chief Executive of YouGov, put great stock by the size of the poll, thus arguing that it reduced the margin of error to less than 1% (meaning that the true figure could be 52-54% supporting remain) what he does not address is that YouGov samples are not random polls. According to statistical theory: 

“Determining the margin of error requires a random sample of a population”  (14)

YouGov does not randomly sample from the population, it samples from its panel. According to its website, the panel has 5 million people worldwide, and over 800,000 from the UK (15). So we know that the 10,000 people used in a YouGov survey are randomly chosen from 800,000 or so people. This makes the sample representative of those who sign up to YouGov, but not of the British public, for the simple reason that the chances of over 51 million people in the UK being selected randomly are precisely zero. 

So, talk of the size of the poll reducing the margin of error is, as I suspect Peter Kellner knows, entirely misleading. And, this is true of all YouGov surveys, despite what they might try to convince us in their FAQ’s.

So, does this mean that the poll suggesting that 53% of the UK population now support a second referendum was wrong?

Not necessarily, but it is difficult to make a claim about the entire population when you have only sampled from a narrow, self-selected sub-set of that population. The fact is that because this is not a random sample we have no way of calculating the margin of error and therefore applying a nominal +/- 3% would be highly recommended. 

The numbers in polls are often misleading, but that does not mean that polls have no use at all. They can be used to see general trends. But, of course, trends from a non-representative poll, whilst interesting, should not be taken to make misleading statements such as "The British public are moving toward..." It would only be possible to say that if the sample on which the poll was based was taken from the population as a whole.  

In the three months leading up to the EU Referendum YouGov had remain 3 points in the lead. Only in their final poll, at the end of May 2016, did the polls suggest that a remain victory was in doubt when they put the two sides neck and neck. What is really noteworthy, however, was that the ‘don’t know’s’ (for which read undecided) remained in double figures until the referendum was announced (a high of 20% in February 2016, to 14% in May). What this indicated, and continues to indicate, is that there are a number of people who are not really sure what the best option is and what appears to have happened at the referendum was that those undecideds disproportionately voted to leave. 

What also seems clear is that since the referendum the two camps have solidified. As Anthony Wells noted in a You Gov blogpost in March 2018: 

“There are still only limited signs of Bregret , with the vast majority of Leave voters still thinking it is the right decision, and the vast majority of Remain voters still believing it was wrong decision.” (16)

The lowest poll percentage for leave since the referendum was 40% (in October 2017), exactly where the polls had them on the eve of the referendum. What we might also note is that the same poll gave remain 44%, but the undecideds (10%) were in double figures for the first time since the referendum. Since October 2017 YouGov polls have been consistent with remain on 43-45%, leave on 41-43% and undecideds on 8%. (The full set of tracker results are at the bottom of this post.)

It is possible to read into these figures a very positive picture for remain who appear from the YouGov panel data to have a healthy 3% lead over leave. So, the People’s Vote campaign is not being entirely disingenuous in claiming a shift of mood, although it might be pointed out that polls in the run up to the referendum also suggested a 3% remain lead. 

For all the reasons I have rehearsed above YouGov polls cannot really be seen as representative of the population as they are not taken from the population but a self-selected panel. But putting that to one side, we can see a trend and if we use a margin of error of 3% we can see what that trend might look like. 

The apparent 47-41 advantage for remain could be 47-3 (44) to 41 +3 (44) which puts us back into eve of referendum territory. At which point how the undecideds split becomes crucial. Some recent reports assume that the undecideds will split in the same way as those who express a preference, but we know from the referendum (when compared with polls) that this was not the case in 2016 and it is a high risk strategy in 2018 if the intent of a second referendum is to change the result.

But, this brings us to the other “exciting” recent revelation which is that 112 constituencies (100 of them being Labour) would now change from leave to remain. Briefly, there are all sorts of problems with this analysis. First, the company that conducted it, Focaldata, uses a variety of statistical techniques to arrive at their conclusions. Probably because they are incredibly complicated they do not publish this on their website. But, secondly, their analysis was based on combining two YouGov polls. That is two non-random polls combined, put through a statistical ringer and then the results published as ‘fact’. 

But, even if they are right (and it is difficult to prove them wrong) what does it matter? The referendum is the aggregate of all votes counted, it doesn’t matter in which constituency you cast your vote, any more than it matters in a General Election in which street you live. 

The only purpose I can see of this particular data was to mislead Labour supporters in an attempt to put pressure on the Labour leadership to support a campaign run by people who are inherently hostile to them. 

I would return to one final point. It really doesn’t matter whether the polls are right or wrong, unless they were overwhelming, there is no reason for the Government to believe them. Furthermore, it makes no great difference to the goal of obtaining a second referendum whether it is supported by Jeremy Corbyn or not, it will be the Government who will make the decision. There does not appear, with the exception of 2 or 3 Tory MP’s, any support within Government circles for a second referendum. In which case, flawed statistics or not, it is moot. It will simply not happen.



Tracker poll data referred to in this post:

Government policy is characterised by being petty and vindictive

What sustains a Government in power? Having the number of MPs to win votes seems pretty important you might think (although the Tories threw away a working majority and now have a very narrow lead and need the support of the DUP). As does having support in the country (see recent YouGov poll here.) However, neither of these can quite explain the success of the current Tory Government who should be in far more electoral trouble than they are. Of course, some people will point to a divided opposition and this remains true. 

But that is to assume that the Tories themselves are united which is clearly not the case. What is sustaining the Government currently is a politics that can best be described as petty and vindictive. Unfortunately this pettiness and vindictiveness has plenty of support throughout the country and can be seen in many policies introduced over the past 20 years or so.

The most recent example is the so-called Windrush scandal in which the Home Secretary has been made to resign over an overtly racist policy introduced by her predecessor with the explicit aim of “encouraging” people to leave the UK. (Here is the BBC doing their best to emphasise the personal tragedy for Amber Rudd).

The hostile environment policy introduced by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary was a policy that was racist both in its intent and application. What is so disappointing is that this policy received no real critical examination in the media (and very little in Parliament) until it emerged that black citizens, who clearly had the right to be in the UK, were affected. This came to light following an investigation by Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman.

The policy and its political fallout is largely treated as if it was an accident, an oversight, and even a personal tragedy for Amber Rudd. But, it was not an accident it was a deliberate and sustained attempt to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation toward black citizens in a somewhat vain attempt to meet targets which despite the lies to the contrary clearly existed.

It is not clear how many ‘illegal’ immigrants there are in the UK (the Office For National Statistics warns that methods of calculating the number are seriously flawed), but what is clear is that this policy and its accompanying ‘leave now’ vans were designed to intimidate a particular community. Why is tackling so-called ‘illegal immigration’ seen as so important to a Government that surely has more important things to worry about? 

Theresa May in defending the policy constantly ignores the human suffering she has caused preferring to remind us that there are people in the UK illegally. It is an obfuscation that plays well with the Tory grassroots and the mass media and it completely misses the point. Although the right wing press play along. (Heres the Daily Mail's reporting of May's defence of the policy.)

There is no need to consistently victimise people who do not have the means to fight back. This is a policy based on a vindictive and empathy lacking political elite whose own lives are rarely, if ever, touched in a negative way by the programmes they introduce.

The “hostile environment” policy is no aberration. The disabled, single parents, unemployed, refugees, those who rely on benefits have all been treated, in one way or another, to versions of the hostile environment. 

The Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake showed brilliantly how difficult it has become in the UK to claim benefits. 

Rather than social security, as we used to call it, being a safety net for those in need it has become a bureaucratic means of humiliating individuals whose only crime is to have fallen on hard times.

We now know that as a result of the stress caused by the ‘hostile environment’ policy more than one person was driven to suicide.   The website Calum's List lists 63 known cases of deaths attributable to cuts in benefit. The figures for the number of suicides attributed to austerity programmes and particularly those involving the targets to reduce benefits are difficult to ascertain as coroners rarely report “Government policy” as a cause of death, but a recent report suggested that at least 81,000 people have taken their own lives shortly after receiving suspensions to their benefits (https://archive.is/zhvCc#selection-597.0-605.36).

Perhaps this will be more shocking if we name some of these people. On November 17^th 2017 the Manchester Evening News reported that 38-year old Elaine Morrall died in her freezing home after her benefits were stopped. (Manchester Evening News)

On 10^thDecember 2017 The Independent reported that 32 year old singer-songwriter Daniella Obeng died in Qatar where she had gone to find work after her disability benefits were stopped. (Independent)

On June 22^nd 2017 the Disability News Service reported on the case of Lawrence Bond a disabled former electrical engineer who died of a heart attack after being told that he was fit for work. (Disability News Service)

But, it is not just the suicides, though if I were a Government Minister I would not want them on my conscience (assuming, of course that Government ministers actually have consciences). The strain that ordinary people are placed under as a result of being denied benefits or being investigated by the Home Office is cruel and usually unnecessary (this blog shows the effect on some of the people who get caught in this bureaucratic trap). For the victims of these deliberately created hostile environments life becomes like living in a Kafka novel.

Socialists are often accused of pursuing a politics of envy and yet the real politics of envy is not those who seek a more equal society but those who seek to maintain a society which is structurally unequal. The vindictiveness of those who enact laws and regulations aimed at the most desperate and vulnerable members of our communities is a national scandal that the occasional ministerial resignation does nothing to change. 

Whilst the papers and broadcast media were full of pity for Amber Rudd and enthusiasm for her successor, they fail to notice the number of people who are the real victims of the policies Amber Rudd, Sajid Javid and Theresa May are responsible for enacting. And, whilst it is tempting to think that a change in government would end the hostile environment for ethnic minorities, the disabled, the poor and the vulnerable in our society ultimately we need a change in our culture which will probably only occur in a completely different type of society from the one we are living in now.