How did it happen?

IN OUR POLLS OF the general public and Labour Party members we offered twelve factors that might have contributed to the election outcome and asked them to say how important they thought each one had been in explaining the result.

Labour defectors – who voted for the party in 2017 but not in 2019 – believed the top two factors were that Brexit dominated the election, and that Jeremy Corbyn was not an appealing leader. Voters as a whole also considered these the main reasons. Next on the list for defectors were the view that Labour were divided, that the party no longer really represented its traditional voters, and that its election promises were not believable.

Labour members concurred that Brexit had dominated the election (though they gave it a higher importance score than voters as a whole), but agreement ended there. Next on the list were an unfair media portrayal of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn, voters believing Conservative lies, voters not understanding what was at stake and the Conservatives exploiting many voters’ bigoted views on race and immigration. 2

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Did Labour deserve to lose?

More than six in ten voters overall said that Labour deserved to lose the election, including nearly two thirds of Labour defectors and 95% of those who switched from the Labour to the Conservatives.

However, only just over one in five Labour members agreed, and 73% of them said the party had not deserved to lose. This rose to 87% among members who had voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 leadership election; more than half of those who had voted for Owen Smith said the party had deserved the result in December.

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No surprises, no regrets

Very few of the former Labour voters in our focus groups had any regrets about not turning out for Labour in 2019. Even those who had stayed at home or switched to a party other than the Conservatives often said they were relieved at the outcome: “It was the best result of the options. There is clarity and direction;” “I’d never admit it in my family but I’m secretly pleased. Boris knows exactly what he’s doing. Corbyn would just get walked over;” “The general public were treated by people in parliament as though they were stupid and didn’t know what they were voting for. I’m pleased we’ve got a direction and the government is going to do what people wanted.”

“It was a vote to say ‘we’re sick and tired of all the faff’.”

Though a few were surprised by the size of the majority, none were surprised by the Conservative victory: “I knew people were going to vote Tory because they were fed up with ‘are we or aren’t we?’;” “It was a vote to say ‘we’re sick and tired of all the faff’. People thought he had the balls to take control of Brexit;” “I think Labour underestimated how strongly people felt about it, that what the majority of the country voted for wasn’t being acted on;” “Our local MP was a remainer and all the chances he had to vote, he never voted to leave. And the majority of the people, his constituents, voted to leave. They’re working for us, that’s what they’re getting paid for, and they didn’t do it. I think that’s why.” 5

Why did you defect?

Those who voted Labour in 2017 but not in 2019 were given a list of nine factors that may have contributed to their decision and asked which applied to them.

For defectors as a whole – including both those who switched to the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – the most popular reason was “I did not want Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister.” For switchers to the Tories, this just pipped “I wanted to get Brexit done and voted to try and make that happen.” More than half also said not believing Labour would be able to deliver its promises and no longer feeling the party represented them had played a part. 6

Did it hurt?

We asked people how easy they found their voting decision in 2019 compared to previous elections they had taken part in.

Labour defectors as a whole were more likely than most to say they had found the decision harder than usual, but there was a significant split according to where they had ended up.

While just over half of those who switched to the Liberal Democrats said they found the decision unusually difficult, most of those who moved to the Conservatives said they found it easier – including 38% who found it much easier. As we will see in the 7following chapters, this is partly explained by the fact that Labour-Lib Dem switchers were more likely still to think of Labour as their party, and more likely to say that 2019 was an unusual election and that they will probably return to Labour next time.

“For me it was easy. Labour had a proper numpty in charge.”

This was reflected in our focus groups of former Labour voters. While a few had some qualms, most switchers to the Conservatives in particular ultimately found the decision quite painless. This was usually because, as well as wanting to get Brexit done, they could not support Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister and felt Labour was no longer the party to which they had previously been loyal: “It was easy for me, the simple fact that I couldn’t possibly have voted for Corbyn, although I’ve been a Labour voter all my life. He was too far to the left;” “The party’s views have altered completely since I was young. And Corbyn had some very odd allegiances;” “To me it was easy. Labour had a proper numpty in charge;” “It was easy because I wanted Brexit, and that alone told me I had to vote Conservative because Labour weren’t going to go through with it;” “It was easy. You’d just have to see Corbyn on television, you’d say ‘no!’”

Why vote Labour?

For those who did vote Labour in December, the single most important reason, cited by more than 7 in 10 of the party’s voters, was “I did not want another Conservative government.” 8

Nearly two thirds of Labour voters said they thought the party would do a better job on public services like the NHS, and just over half said they liked the policies Labour were putting forward. Just under half said Labour’s values were closest to their own, and four in ten said wanting a second referendum on Brexit was part of their decision to vote Labour. Only 25% did so because they wanted Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister, and 28% because they thought Labour would make the most competent government. Nearly one in four said “I always vote Labour.” 9

For or against?

Half of all voters said their vote at the election had been mostly in favour of a party, policy or leader, while for 28% it had been mostly against a party, policy or leader they didn’t like.

Conservative voters were the most likely to have been voting positively. 36% of Labour voters (and 52% of Lib Dems) said they had been voting mostly against a party, policy or leader.

Most (56%) of those switching from Labour to the Conservatives said they had voted mostly for positive reasons, compared to 36% of those moving to the Lib Dems. 10

No, Jeremy Corbyn

As we saw in the poll, not wanting Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister was the single biggest motivation for Labour defectors, including switchers to the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, and was considered the biggest explanation for the election outcome among voters as a whole (though not by Labour Party members).

“Nothing about him says ‘leader’.”

Discussions about Jeremy Corbyn in our focus groups of former Labour voters produced a number of recurring themes. One was that he was not a strong leader and simply not a convincing candidate to be PM: “Nothing about him says ‘leader’;” “He wasn’t someone I would trust my country to be run by. The amount of people in the party who were turning their backs and leaving, and he never really addressed a lot of issues, like antisemitism. He never really had that authority;” “The thought of Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump butting heads while we tried to get a trade deal with them;” “He can’t be bothered to get dressed properly. Half the time he didn’t have a tie. He was like Farmer John up the road. You can’t imagine him in the White House, can you?”; “It’s Bonkers Boris, but people react to strength. Corbyn is ‘I don’t want to make a decision, I don’t really want to commit to anything, I’ll just tell them whatever I think will get me a vote’;” “Watching the debates, I got a bad feeling about him. He never fully answered the question and he was so weak;” “He sat on the fence on Brexit. I thought, if he can’t make a decision on something like that, what’s he going to do if something important happens and a decision needs to be made? He’d run around with his hands in the air.” 11

“He is not patriotic. He meets all those terrorist parties. You want someone with good old values.”

Many also worried about his approach to defence and national security, including his reported meetings with terrorist groups: “His sympathies with Hezbollah and the IRA and all these different groups. He empathises with everybody;” “That woman who moved to ISIS, he said she should be let back into the country. That was a turning point for me;” “He wanted to disarm the country;” “He said he would never press the button. We need protection. He should have said he would, even if he didn’t mean it.” Some cited other evidence for what they saw as his lack of patriotism: “He’s anti-Royal as well. He refused to sing the national anthem.”

“He was a throwback to the 60s or 70s.”

There was also feeling that Corbyn was too left-wing and that his approach was irrelevant or even dangerous in the modern world: “Corbyn was stuck in the past, stuck in the 80s, and he’s not moved on with his policies. He was a nice person, but his policies didn’t fit in;” “It was too much of a throwback in one step to the 60s or 70s. It reminded me of Michael Foot.” Some also felt he was too given to protesting, rather than grasping the realities of government: “The way he was with Trump put me off. I mean, I hate Donald Trump, but when he came over last year and Corbyn was protesting outside parliament, I thought, ‘well if you’re going to be PM you’ve got to deal with him, you can’t behave like that’.”

“In 2017 there was a lot of momentum behind him, and then he sort of lost it. There was no clear plan or direction.”

12Many of our focus group participants had nevertheless voted Labour when Corbyn was leader in 2017. For some of them, Labour’s changing position on Brexit had pushed them away: “They said they would support the referendum result, but since then they’ve done nothing but block it.” The different alternatives on offer had also been a factor: “It was a different vote in 2017. I don’t think Theresa May was a very strong candidate.” Others were simply less impressed with Corbyn’s leadership the more they saw of it: “He went from bad to worse. He got dafter and dafter;” “In 2017 there was a lot of momentum behind him, and then he sort of lost it. There was no clear plan or direction;” “He went so far to the left. In 2017 it was about supporting people, but this was nationalising everything. State-controlled energy, state-controlled broadband, state-controlled this and that…;” “It seemed to be one thing after another. It was like coming down a ladder;” “You build up an image over time. I thought, actually, do I really want Corbyn? No, I don’t.”

In our Labour Movement focus groups, party and union members often acknowledged that Jeremy Corbyn had not won over the electorate – but often because he was too earnest or serious for what the voters wanted: “He’s not a showman, and that’s what people want. He’s not bright and shiny like Boris, and people seem to want that, they don’t look at substance;” “There is a carefully calibrated over-simplification. Cameron did it, Boris did it, and Trump. ‘Get Brexit done.’ If you’re authentic, simplifying like that goes against the grain;” “Theresa against Jeremy was a level playing field, but Boris likes the media circus around him. Jeremy is very earnest, and I don’t think people appreciate that. They want a circus.” They also felt he was treated very unfairly by the media: “There were big anti-Muslim charges against the Tories but that was never in the papers. The smear campaign was insane.”

Some members did concede that the voters may have had better reasons: “He didn’t commit himself on Brexit. He was asked again and again if he was remain or leave. By the end, even I thought ‘just answer the bloody question!’” “Sometimes he should 13have kept his mouth shut. When that guy stabbed two people on London Bridge, he was there saying terrorists should be released from prison!” “He didn’t assemble a team that inspired you to think they could run the country;” “There was a very clear message from the other parties and Labour’s message wasn’t clear. If you’ve got mining communities in the North voting Conservative, something must have gone seriously wrong;” “I wouldn’t go out canvassing because when people asked ‘what are you going to do about Brexit?’ it would be ‘renegotiate the deal and then do this and do that and in three years’ time we might have Brexit or we might not’. You would get slated.”

The Brexit factor

We asked voters whether they thought they would have voted for a different party had Brexit not been on the agenda at the 2019 election – and if so, which one.

1486% of Conservatives, 84% of Labour voters and 65% of Lib Dems said they would probably have voted the same way had Brexit not been an issue. Just over half of Labour defectors, including 62% of 2017 Labour voters who switched to the Tories, said they would have voted as they did in 2019 even if Brexit had not been at stake.

Among those who said they would have voted differently without Brexit to consider, 73% of Labour-Lib Dem switchers but only 58% of Labour-Conservative switchers said they would have stayed with Labour.

“He said he would go to Brussels as a neutral. I thought, that’s completely ridiculous.”

Former Labour voters in our focus groups often mentioned Brexit when asked their reasons for switching away from the party. However, there were three main aspects to this. First was the issue itself – that they wanted it done, or at least out of the way, and this would only happen under the Conservatives: “I voted remain, but I just wanted to get it done. I got so sick of it all I wanted some sort of closure;” “It needed to be sorted. It was embarrassing. The whole world was watching us squabble;” “We had to get it done and Boris was the person to do it;” “We weren’t going to get Brexit if Labour got in, were we?”

Second was Labour’s policy on the issue, which many felt further undermined the credibility of the leadership, and its opposition to whatever specific proposals were brought forward: “He said he would go to Brussels as a neutral, not saying if he wanted to be in or out. When I heard that, I thought, that’s completely ridiculous;” “I didn’t like the fact that he was prepared to sit on the fence;” “Labour were like children in a playground. Whatever Boris brought to the table for Brexit, even if it was the best plan ever, they would have just thrown it out. They wouldn’t even look at anything and consider it.” 15

“It wasn’t so much Brexit, it was democracy. It was that they wouldn’t honour the referendum.”

Third, and perhaps most importantly, was the principle of Labour refusing to listen to them and failing to implement the result of a democratic vote: “It wasn’t so much Brexit, it was democracy. It was that they wouldn’t honour the referendum;” “I felt let down. 17.4 million people voted leave, and we’re supposed to be a democracy. They threw spanners in the works and did everything they could to stop it. It was arrogance. They were no longer listening to the people;” “It was a backlash against Labour disregarding Brexit. They were saying ‘it’s the adults talking now, leave the table and we’ll sort it out for you’;” “When your own MP votes against her constituents, you lose faith.”

“It goes back to Gordon Brown calling that woman a bigot. He tarred her with the bigot brush rather than listening to what she had to say. It’s the same with Brexit.”

For some, this was the culmination of a pattern of behaviour from Labour that they had noticed before: “It goes back to Gordon Brown calling that woman a bigot. He tarred her with the bigot brush rather than listening to what she had to say. It’s the same with Brexit.”

Labour Party members were split as to whether their Brexit policy had been the right one – and if not, what it should have been instead.

Overall, 41% said they thought the policy had been correct, but most of these said it had not been communicated clearly; only one in ten thought it had been both right and well presented.

The half of Labour members who thought the policy was wrong were closely divided 16as to whether the position should have been to remain in the EU (23%, including nearly half of Owen Smith’s 2016 leadership voters) or to go ahead with Brexit (27%, including one in three of those who voted for Corbyn).

Two thirds of Labour Party members – including three quarters of Corbyn leadership voters – said Brexit dominated the election and had a bigger effect on the result than how people felt about the parties, leaders, and other policies.

However, Corbyn and Smith leadership backers were divided as to whether voters had been more attracted by the Tories or put off by Labour. Similar proportions agreed that the most important factor had been the Conservatives convincing large numbers of voters that they were on their side and had the right policies. Yet while 37% of 2016 Smith voters said the main factor had been that “Labour had fundamentally lost touch with large numbers of its former voters, and not just on Brexit,” only one in 20 Corbyn backers agreed. 17

A question of policy

In our focus groups, former Labour voters had a number of observations to make about the party’s other policies at the 2019 election. One was that they seemed wildly unrealistic: “Cutting the working week, free internet. It was undoable, and the cost was astronomical;” “What he promised was just impossible. The billions of pounds they were promising for this, that and the other… It was pie in the sky. People are not daft;” “When he came out with the stuff about the Waspi women, my friend said to me ‘we’re going to get £23,000, vote for him!’ And I said, ‘are you mad? Where’s he going to get that?’”

“It was pie in the sky. People are not daft.”

Another worry was that the manifesto suggested a return to overspending and debt – or 18significantly higher taxes: “They were going to tax everything and spend money we haven’t got;” “We’d just had ten years of austerity because of the last Labour government. We’d have had to go through all that pain again;” “The money was coming from the middle class, people like us;” “I don’t want this country turning into Greece or Spain, one of those countries that can’t finance itself;” “Taxing the rich – but we need clever, innovative millionnaires in this country. We need a welfare state, but you’ve still got to reward people for doing well. They’re very blinkered, they don’t see the big picture.” “We don’t need free wifi, for heaven’s sake. It costs £20 a month. I can afford it.” For many, the promise of free broadband, in particular, signalled an odd set of priorities:

“We don’t need free wifi, for heaven’s sake. It costs £20 a month, I can afford it;”

“When they said they were going to give everyone free broadband, I thought, ‘what are you talking about? That money could be going towards the police, or nurses.’ That was a red-flag moment for me. I thought, I don’t trust a word you say anymore;” “They kept chucking in crazy ideas like free broadband. Nobody was sure what he was doing. He was all over the place.”

“It was like being in an African country, where they bribe everyone to vote for them.”

Some had the impression that Labour were simply trying to buy votes, especially from younger people who they hoped might prove more credulous: “If you overhear teenagers about to bullshit someone, you’ll hear them say ‘just tell them this’ or ‘just tell them that.’ And that’s what it felt like to me. ‘Just tell them we’ll give them free broadband,’ and it’s complete crap. It wouldn’t happen;” “They were promising such stupid things, 19paying off student loans and giving everyone free broadband. They were trying to buy everybody. It was like being in an African country, where they bribe everyone to vote for them;” “They tried to include 16-year-olds. That showed how desperate they were getting.”

“He was taking us back to the 70s with all the strikes and power cuts. I thought, I don’t want to go that way, we’re a great country.”

There was also a widespread sense that Labour’s policies would take Britain back to the past, whether on industrial relations, the benefits system or the nuclear disarmament debate: “He was taking us back to the 70s with all the strikes and power cuts. I thought, I don’t want to go that way, we’re a great country. And he would never say ‘we’re a great country’. He would talk about Palestine and all that sort of stuff but nothing positive about Great Britain;” “They were on about scrapping Universal Credit, but they didn’t say what they were going to do instead. Were they going to return to the old days when Blair and Brown were in charge, when people could choose whether they wanted to work for the rest of their lives or not?”; “He wanted to drop nuclear weapons. His stance on everything was so lovely and idyllic, but we’ve got Trump, Kim Jong Whatever, the world blowing up around us and we’ve got a guy waving the flag of peace. It’s not going to work.” Though they were not clear on the policy detail, many also felt Labour had an unduly soft approach to immigration: “It’s ‘come in, come in!’ Too much of an open-door policy.”

Our Labour Movement focus groups were also critical of the 2019 manifesto, usually because of the array of policies and promises (“it was a bit like being on eBay”) which did not convince voters: “Free broadband – it was like someone in South America 20throwing money off the back of a lorry;” “The manifesto was fantastic, but can he do it in real life? It was like a fairy tale; people didn’t believe it.”

However, some members were disappointed or puzzled that the voters had rejected the programme: “It’s neoliberalism. People have been brainwashed that these things aren’t possible, but when I was a child, they were normal;” “They think capitalism is the only way. It’s baffling. People are screaming out for real change and he was offering a solution;” “There is an element of racism too. Especially the older generation.”

A new dawn has broken, has it not?

Despite the Conservatives having been in office since 2010, most in our focus groups said that this felt like a new government or, as some put it, “a new beginning.”

“With Boris and Brexit, it feels like maybe things are going to happen. Good things, hopefully.”

After more than three years of indecision, “it feels like there is a party in place now that is actually interested in the public;” “Things are happening. They’re already recruiting police;” “It feels completely new, so fresh. I feel hopeful. I think he represents a lot of hope and a fresh start and getting Brexit done.” For some, this optimism was tinged with a degree of wariness: “With Boris and Brexit, it feels like maybe things are going to happen. Good things, hopefully;” “Say what you like about Boris, he has brought a breath of fresh air to it. You don’t know what he will do next, though.”