UK Polls… May 19, 2019
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
An Opinium poll for the Observer found that the Liberal Democrats have narrowly overtaken Labour as the favourite party of remain voters, with 29% of the group now backing Cable’s party and 28% backing Labour.
Meanwhile, a wider poll found that the Lib Dems are set to top the poll in London and could even push Labour into third place overall in the European election.
The YouGov/Datapraxis poll of more than 9,000 voters, commissioned by the pro-remain Best for Britain campaign and Hope Not Hate, found the Brexit party leading in all other regions apart from Scotland, where the SNP leads.
It found that the Lib Dems had overtaken Labour, once the pollster had removed voters who said they did not know how they would vote, or would not vote. It put the Lib Dems on 17%, Labour on 15% and the Greens just four points further back, on 11%. The Brexit party was leading on 34% and the Tories were on 9%.
Of course it is essential to keep in mind that European elections will play out differently to a general election but one has to wonder at how this pummelling of voters traditional inclinations in respect of supporting their parties will play out in the medium term. There’s a fascinating graphic of the Opinium results further down the linked piece above in the Observer which shows that distinction between electoral contests writ large – with Labour ahead of the Brexit party in a general election but the Brexit party ahead of Labour at the European elections. But the first is the BLP on 29 as against the Brexit party on 24 and the second is Brexit party on 34% and Labour on 20. The Tories are a mere 12% in the Euro poll, behind the LDs on 15, but ahead in the GE poll on 22, with the LDs on 11.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
“Some people seem to look at the issue the wrong way round: they seem to think the first question is leave or remain, as if that is an end in itself. I think they’re wrong. The first question is: what kind of society do we want to be?
“The real divide in our country is not how people voted in the EU referendum. The real divide is between the many and the few,.”-Corbyn
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/14/former-labour-mp-bridget-prentice-quits-party-after-45-years-blaming-corbyn-cult
“Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr, Corbyn said ‘has given a robust defence of Labour’s decision to try to appeal to both leavers and remainers in this Thursday’s European elections.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/19/jeremy-corbyn-defends-labour-bid-leavers-remainers
Brexit has fractured the Labour party with the traditional working class vote in the old industrial areas being pro-Brexit, and the cosmopolitan progressive vote in the cities being pro-remain.
The Tories are tearing themselves apart over Europe.
In the Euro election this splintering of the two main parties is reflected in the LibDem plus Greens garnering the remain vote, while the more avid Brexiteers are backing the Farage reaction.
Will the single issue, Brexit, continue to dominate in a GE, or is Corbyn reading the situation correctly?
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That’s a great question. Indeed isn’t that the key question? I don’t know. I hope he is.
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I don’t think Corbyn is reading the situation correctly – or rather he might be, but nobody will pay any attention to him.
Farage (brexiteers) have the bit between their teeth in England and the rest of us in Scotland and NI will have to put up with what ensues
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I think Corbyn is reading the situation correctly, but has been too long in coming to his conclusion for it to do any good.
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Yes it will unfortunately continue to dominate, and Corbyn is not reading the situation correctly.
The UK now has a new ‘identity’ – how you stand in Brexit. Unfortunately this political dimension will continue to trump or at the very least blur class politics for a generation.
The only way to put this identity partly to bed is a referendum with remain on the ballot and for remain to win. All other options mean that Brexit will dominate UK politics for a decade.
The BLP could present this referendum and backing remain as the consequence of having genuinely tried and failed to implement Brexit, and they could now recommend that the project of Brexit should be postponed so that they can get on with their programme within the UK.
But the won’t.
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“Corbyn has tried to face both ways at once: a sceptic of Europe as a capitalist club, he also leads a strongly Remain party and so has been forced into endless compromises and fence-sitting. It pleases no-one, and has catalysed an electoral disaster.
He will face a leadership challenge by a party disillusioned by his faceless, ambiguous leadership despite all his friends on the left – and which he is likely to lose. Indeed if the Labour party is to mount an effective challenge to Johnson, he must lose.
And the LibDems have suddenly re-emerged as a potent electoral force. They will do well in the imminent general election, and no stable government will be possible afterwards without their support.”-Will Hutton
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/will-hutton-nigel-farage-s-success-will-keep-the-uk-in-europe-1.3898541
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Corbyn’s great strength is that voters see him as part of a great tradition of English radicalism going back to the Levellers, if not to Wat Tyler and Robin Hood.
his great weakness is that he is genuinely part of that tradition.
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