UK poll puts Corbyn’s Labour tied with Tories

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, March 16th, 2016 - 19 comments
Categories: uk politics - Tags: ,

The utter destruction of the UK Labour Party under loony leftie leader Jeremy Corbyn continues apace. Or not:

Shock poll offers hope to Jeremy Corbyn as Labour draws level with the Tories

Labour has drawn level in the polls with the Tories for the first time since Jeremy Corbyn became leader.

An ICM poll for the Guardian put Labour on 36%, up four points, – neck and neck with the Conservatives, down 3% on December’s findings. UKIP remains unchanged on 11%, the Lib Dems up one point on 8% and the Greens down one on 3%.

The findings will be a much needed boost to Mr Corbyn and may help calm nerves in Labour ahead of May’s London, Scottish, Welsh and local elections. …

Could be a rogue poll of course, but either way it certainly isn’t bad news.

19 comments on “UK poll puts Corbyn’s Labour tied with Tories ”

  1. McFlock 2

    Unfortunately, the UK is under a first past the post system.

  2. Colonial Viper 3

    Maybe the NZ Labour Party could learn something from the success of Corbyn taking UK Labour on a genuine hard left turn.

    • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 3.1

      Yes, please.

    • shorts 3.2

      we live in hope… prepared for disappointment

    • After what they did to Cunliffe? Why would anyone stick their head out for that kind of treatment again?

    • Richard McGrath 3.4

      Didn’t we try that with the Alliance?

      • McFlock 3.4.1

        wasn’t doing too badly until the caucus leader sold out completely, unilaterally supporting invasions and suchlike.

        • swordfish 3.4.1.1

          Almost won the 1992 By-Election in deep blue Tamaki (pushing Labour into third place), swept the Auckland Regional Council elections later the same year, 18% of the vote at the 1993 General Election and (from memory) was frequently polling above 20% (occasionally topping 30%) through 1994-95.

          • McFlock 3.4.1.1.1

            Until after 1996 election it included the greens though, ISTR. And how much of winston going with the nats in 1996 being down to anderton playing silly buggers is also up for debate.

            But the real fucker was dropping from 7% to 1% in 2002, whereas the greens only went from 5 to 7.

            Fucking Anderton. Beware saviours, they can never live up to expectation.

            • swordfish 3.4.1.1.1.1

              Yep, good point about the inclusion of the Greens.

              I was one of only an estimated 9,000 voters – 9,000 for chrissakes !!! – who Party Voted Alliance in both 1999 and 2002.

              Not only did the Alliance plunge in massive proportions from 160,000 in 1999 to a truly dismal 25,000 in 2002, but (as Jack Vowles’ New Zealand Election Study of 2002 revealed) things were even worse ! Because not much more than a third of that 25,000 were, in fact, Alliance loyalists. The rest (the other 16,000) had actually voted for other parties in 1999 and had then swung to the beleaguered Harre-led Alliance in 2002 (about half of this 16,000 were former (1999) Green voters / the other half were drawn almost equally from Labour, NZ First and National).

              So, not much more than 5% of 1999 Alliance voters remained loyal (although, obviously a chunk of them headed in Anderton’s direction). From memory, something like two-thirds of the Progressives’ 34,000 voters were 1999 Alliance supporters.

              • McFlock

                Can’t really blame them though. The party had been intentionally and thoroughly sabotaged by the leader.

                istr at the time that the hail Mary pass was laila harre going for waitakere. Solid effort, but all for naught.

                • swordfish

                  Yep, she managed to convince half of Green Party Voters and more than a quarter of Labour Party Voters to give her their Candidate Vote in the seat.

                  Really needed another 10-20% of Lab voters to support her, though, (the variation = depending on whether or not those voters came directly from Labour’s Lynne Pillay)

  3. Ad 4

    Are these the same polls that had them tied with the Conservatives just before the last election?

    I’d like to see a longer tracking before I believe it.

  4. Phil 5

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2016

    Based on other recent results, the Guardian poll smells like a bit of an outlier. There’s no discernible downward trend in Conservative vote since the election, but the UKIP number looks weak.

  5. The Real Matthew 6

    Unfortunately the poll only included labour supporters….

    OK maybe a poor attempt at humour but seriously

  6. swordfish 7

    Well, I’m a great supporter of UK Labour’s turn to the Left via Corbyn / McDonnell (though not entirely uncritical of some of their woeful strategic mistakes nor of one or two of their archaic social conceptions), but it has to be said that ICM are, themselves, somewhat downplaying these results.

    http://www.icmunlimited.com/media-centre/media-center/guardian-poll-march-2016

    But, but, but … then again, the direction (Tory lead slashed) follows recent Com Res (Tories’ lead down 5 points) and YouGov (Tories’ lead down 3 points) Polls. So, let’s not be too hasty to dismiss it as Rogue.

    It should be said here, though, that Corbyn’s leadership favourability ratings are pretty bloody awful (though slightly improving, while Cameron’s continue to decline). In stark contrast to the views of Labour Party members (let alone activists), the wider UK electorate (particularly middle aged and older voters) haven’t taken to him at all well.

    Probably inevitable given the shit storm of vitriol he and McDonnell have had to put up with from the MSM and broader UK Establishment (somewhat exacerbated, it has to be conceded, by their own strategic mistakes). And it seems to go hand-in-hand with an (eminently predictable) massive rise in the proportion of poll respondents seeing the Labour Party as badly divided. That’s the kind of blackmail power that the Blairite/Brownite-dominated PLP can wield.

    But, once again, I have to say “then again …” because when it actually comes down to real, live, practical electoral consequences … strike me down if the deeply unpopular Corbyn isn’t doing reasonably well … easy Oldham West By-Election win, mixed but not too bad results in local council by-elections over the last few months, and at least the London Mayoralty’s looking good …

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