To win the next election LAB need to find converts and it’s hard to see where these are coming from
Current polling finds LAB shedding support – not gaining it
With all the current speculation about a new election and the possibility of Corbyn becoming PM the latest polling is being sidelined and the question of where LAB’s required new support is going to come from is hardly mentioned.
The shock result at the last election has impacted greatly on both main parties in very different ways. The Tories fear the Labour threat and can’t take comfort in their polling position however strong it might appear. LAB, on the other hand, appears convinced that it doesn’t need to worry about the present because last time showed what could happen during the campaign when, as they will point out, the broadcasters have to be impartial.
- I’d argue that LAB was helped at GE2017 because nobody gave the party an earthly and they shouldn’t rely on the precedent of last time for the next election.
LAB and its leader, as will be recalled, received far less scrutiny during the campaign than a party that appeared on the brink of power would have come under. This made it so much easier or Corbyn because at no time did he come under serious pressure. We’ve seen over his initial responses to Salisbury and the antisemitism row that he doesn’t handle criticism and pressure well.
The current political environment is so unlike the build-up to the party last returning to power in 1997. The leader at the time, the one they don’t like talking about, realised that if the party was not to be defeated for a fifth successive time it needed to extend its base way beyond what it had at GE1992. Tony Blair made it “safe” for whole segments of the electorate to vote LAB for the first time.
To have any chance Corbyn’s LAB needs to retain the support of last year and to add some. So where are Corbyn’s converts going to come from and how is he is going to go about bringing them on board? That is as