Thread by @ChristabelCoops

THREAD: Did Labour Leavers desert because of Corbyn or Brexit?

New @BESResearch data suggests that views on the leaders were more important than Brexit in causing voters to defect. Though Corbyn was leader in both 2017 and 2019, his popularity dropped between those years. 1/13

We know now that Corbyn’s popularity particularly dropped amongst 2017 Labour Leave voters. This graph shows the average favourability of Corbyn and May amongst Labour voters just after GE2017, versus strength of Remain or Leave identity. 2/13

Back in 2017 Strong Leavers disliked Corbyn slightly more than Strong Remainers – and Remainers particularly disliked Theresa May more than Leavers did. But across all shades of Brexit opinion, those who voted Labour in GE2017 preferred Corbyn to May. 3/13

But by 2019, Corbyn’s favourability plummeted from 5.3 out of 10 to 2.2 amongst the strongest Leavers and crucially they now preferred Boris Johnson to Corbyn. Strong Remainers on the other hand, liked Corbyn a bit less than in 2017 but they really, really disliked Johnson. 4/14

The gap between liking Johnson and liking Corbyn is key in understanding why some Labour voters switched between 2017 and 2019. There is almost a perfect relationship (R squared = 0.95) between that gap and the percentage of 2017 Lab voters who switched. 5/13

Views of Corbyn vs Johnson are more important than strength of belief in Leave/Remain in determining likelihood of switching from Labour. The small number of strong Leavers who much preferred Corbyn to Johnson were still very likely to vote Labour in 2019. 6/13

For voters who were neutral or slightly favourable to Johnson, strong Remain or Leave views made a difference to switching rates. But views of the leadership were a bigger factor; across all Brexit views a strongly favourable view of Johnson led to defections of around 90%. 7/13

Perhaps Corbyn backing a second referendum caused Leave voters to have much more negative views of him?

However looking at *non-Brexit* factors such as how much integrity and competence the two leaders possessed, Labour Leavers still rated Corbyn lower than Remainers. 8/13

Ashcroft’s report on the election defeat lordashcroftpolls.com/2020/02/diagno… lists evidence from focus groups of ex-Labour voters on other non-Brexit related reasons for Corbyn’s unpopularity- including believing he was weak, stuck in the past and worries about links with terrorists. 9/13

Also bear in mind that Theresa May opposed a second referendum and tried to push a fairly hard Brexit through. And yet was still unpopular with strong Labour Leavers. It took Boris suspending Parliament/threatening No Deal/pushing through very Hard Brexit to win them over. 10/13

If a Labour leader had adopted this approach to Brexit, it would have been electorally disastrous given that Labour Remainers vastly outnumber Labour Leavers.

It only worked for the Tories because Tory Leavers vastly outnumber Tory Remainers. 11/13

Leaders really, really matter in elections. Views on the leaders were a stronger predictor of whether 2017 Labour voters would defect than strength of feeling about Brexit. And strong Lab Leavers seem to have disliked Corbyn for a variety of reasons, not just Brexit. 12/13

Given all this, Corbyn would probably have had to adopt a *very* hard Brexit stance to stand any chance of convincing Leavers, which would have driven away the bigger number of Labour Remainers. ENDS