Wake me up when it’s all over
THE LEADERSHIP ELECTION HAD sparked little interest among the former Labour voters in our focus groups, partly because of general political fatigue (“I’m tired of politics. I’ve switched off”) and partly because they were more interested in the new government than in news about Labour (“I’m looking to see what Boris is going to do. He’s got to deliver, and I think he’s going to. If he doesn’t, we’ll look at other people, but we’ve got to give him a chance.”)
Though some had noticed (usually with approval) that most of the candidates were women, few were inspired by what they had seen: “None of them look sincere and there’s no change;” “None of them look like they’ve got an ounce of a sense of humour;” “They’re all a bit woke, aren’t they?”; “Is there no Brexiteer? After what’s happened to them?”
Their ideal Labour leader would be “professional,” “realistic,” “strong,” would “bring the party back together,” “stand up for Britain” and, perhaps above all, would listen: “They’ve got to go with what the people have asked for, not just what they themselves want.” Several also called for a more centrist approach: “I would want someone fairly moderate. We all understand that you’ve got to work, and the company has to make a profit, in order to pay the taxes so we get the services. I would want someone with an understanding of that.” 58
Rating the candidates
In our surveys of Labour members and voters as a whole we asked how positive or negative people felt about each of the candidates to be Leader or Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
59Participants could click ‘don’t know’ if they did not feel they knew enough about the candidate to have an opinion, and the first thing to note is just how many took this option. Just over half said ‘don’t know’ for the best-known candidates (Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long Bailey and Emily Thornberry), while two thirds did so for Lisa Nandy and more than three quarters for most of the candidates for Deputy.
Keir Starmer scored the highest ratings among Labour members by a clear margin, and he was the only candidate to win a net positive rating among voters as a whole.
Rebecca Long Bailey was the most divisive figure, scoring the second highest rating among Labour members and the lowest of any of the contenders among the public as a whole.
Angela Rayner was the best known and most popular (or, for voters as a whole, least unpopular) candidate for Deputy.
Our political maps, based on correspondence analysis, show how different issues, attributes, personalities and opinions interact. The closer the plot points are to each other, the more closely related they are. Our map of the Labour leadership election shows the kinds of voters from which each of the candidates finds their peak support.
Keir Starmer’s most positive ratings are to be found in remain-voting territory, close to voters who switched to the Lib Dems from Labour or the Conservatives. Peak support for Rebecca Long Bailey is to be found much deeper in current Labour territory, while the highest ratings for Emily Thornberry are to be found between the two. Of the four candidates, Lisa Nandy finds the peak of her appeal closest to Leave voters and those who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019. 60
Keir Starmer
Among Labour defectors, Keir Starmer scored much higher with Labour-Lib Dem switchers (+21.9) than Labour-Conservative switchers (+0.6).
Participants were shown a list of positive and negative words and phrases and asked which they most associated with each candidate. The most frequent choices for Keir Starmer were “competent,” “up to the job” and “potential election winner.”
When we map the words and phrases chosen for Keir Starmer we see the most positive views (“likeable,” “principled,” “competent,” “strong”) coming from centrist remainer and Lib Dem-voting territory – while descriptions like “out of touch” and “doesn’t listen” are most likely to come from Conservative/Leave voting parts of the map. 61
Much of this was echoed in our focus groups of former Labour voters: “Best of the bunch. A bit like Tony Blair in some ways. He could be a bit more centre-ground. He didn’t get on with Jeremy Corbyn, although they pretended they did;” “He was the DPP, obviously very intelligent. He has that authority;” “He’s shown he can be resolute and is quite competent;” “The only one I think would be electable.” 62
“He did everything in his power to stop Brexit.”
However, some Labour defectors doubted he would be standing up for them, not least because of his position on Brexit: “He was happy to overturn a democratic process, which is a bit of a worry;” “He did everything in his power to stop Brexit. And he’s privileged and upper-class;” “It’s Sir Keir Starmer, isn’t it, so straight away you think, ‘who are you representing?’” 63
Rebecca Long Bailey
Rebecca Long Bailey’s rating was firmly negative among switchers from Labour to both the Conservatives (-20.8) and the Lib Dems (-11.8). The most chosen words and phrases in our poll were “out of touch” and “out of her depth,’ followed by “arrogant” and “doesn’t listen”.
As we can see on the map, positive associations like “shares my values,” “caring,” “down to earth” and “tells the truth” were most likely to have been made by core Labour voters. 64
Focus group participants who were aware of her believed her to be the candidate closest to Jeremy Corbyn and felt she would continue in the same direction.
“She would be Jeremy in a skirt.”
“She’s taking Labour’s biggest failures and trying to use that as her banner. She’s saying, ‘I wrote those policies!’”; “She’s just going to go down Corbyn’s route, no change whatsoever. She would be Jeremy in a skirt;” “She would be a nail in the coffin. It would show Labour are absolutely not looking to change.” 65
Emily Thornberry
Emily Thornberry’s score was much lower among Labour-Conservative switchers (-23.1) than among Labour-Lib Dem switchers (-3.0).
In our poll, the words and phrases most often associated with her were “arrogant,” “smug,” “out of touch” and “doesn’t listen.”
Our map shows that positive descriptions like “principled,” “strong,” “tells the 66truth” and “competent” are to be found closer to Lib Dem and remainer territory, a similar space to that occupied by Keir Starmer.
Former Labour voters in our focus groups often saw her as “arrogant” or said she “talks down to people” – though one observed that she had recently “changed her style. She used to be one of the most arrogant remainers on TV.”
“She slagged off someone because he had an England flag outside his house.”
However, several recalled her tweeting a picture of a house sporting a flag of St. George, which suggested a disdain for people of a certain social class or cultural outlook: “She 67slagged someone off because he had an England flag outside his house. She was derogatory about it. So that’s her off.”
Lisa Nandy
Lisa Nandy’s score was the second highest among both Labour-Conservative switchers (-4.7) and Labour-Lib Dem switchers (+6.9).
Though she was the least known of the four contenders, those who had an opinion chose “likeable” as often as “out of her depth.”
68Most of the positive associations came from the Leave-voting and Labour-Conservative switching side of the map, putting the centre of her appeal further away from core Labour and Remainer territory than that of the other three candidates.
Lisa Nandy was also the least well-known of the candidates among our focus group participants, but for most those who had a view the impression she had made was positive: “I’d pick her. She’s young, she’s got fresh ideas, she wasn’t with Corbyn.”
“She was one of the first people to speak out against Corbyn, so that’s a start.”
Some were encouraged that “she was one of the first people to speak out against Corbyn, so that’s a start.” But “hasn’t she got a thing about private schools?”