If Labour won’t stand up for Remain voters, it’s time for a new party

[Denzil_DC]

11. But to what extent was this an anti-Cameron vote anyway?

Last edited Sun Jul 3, 2016, 11:03 AM - Edit history (1)

And then there's my point about the very public griping from the PLP about Corbyn, which they didn't even let up with during the referendum campaign itself.

Sorry, just dismissing his "reasoning" (scare quotes noted) as bad isn't an argument. Look at the data he's drawing on, and bear in mind he's never shown signs of being particularly partisan, and has been the bearer of bad and unwelcome polling news for those of us on the broad left for many, many years.

I don't see Curtice's conclusion as fatalism, more realism. His argument's pretty clear, and maybe unwelcome for Labour. It's a fact that there hasn't been wholehearted support within Labour, let alone those who may have happened to vote Labour in a certain election, for the EU since the UK joined. That's not confined to the left of the party, however that's defined now.

Heck, up here in Scotland, Sturgeon could in no way be accused of campaigning half-heartedly, and did her damnedest to run the very sort of positive pro-EU membership campaign that people have been bemoaning the lack of.

She still couldn't carry a significant proportion of SNP voters with her. Here's Curtice again:

Indeed, SNP supporters are at least as divided about the referendum as their Labour counterparts, maybe even more so. For, at 73%, support for Remain in these polls amongst Labour supporters was a little higher than it was amongst SNP voters, and, conversely, support for Leave was a little lower. These figures are in fact very similar to those for Labour supporters in polls taken across Great Britain as a whole.

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2016/06/so-just-how-united-are-the-snp-on-europe/

There have been ludicrous attempts since the result from those outside the SNP to blame her for not turning out a better Remain result up here (even a petition calling for her to resign as First Minister). They haven't gained any serious support, for obvious reasons.

SNP voters will have voted Leave for a variety of reasons. One of the most notable I've witnessed discussed (and I must admit they have a point) was what some people saw as shameful victimization of Greece. As a potentially small member state within the EU (whose economy, admittedly, is currently in nowhere near the long-term mess Greece's is), it's not surprising that some might take that as a warning about what might lie ahead if a second independence referendum was successful and Scotland ended up in the EU without the rest of the UK.

Sturgeon still has the support of these people who voted Leave. In fact, her support and approval ratings have grown again since the referendum, as has the SNP's membership. Some SNP voters just didn't agree with her.

I don't think some voters were in a listening mood any more, for a variety of reasons. And the media narrative didn't help, obviously - if it wasn't propelling pro-Leave propaganda, it was spreading complacency about Remain's prospects.

We went through this with Labour up here during the 2015 general election. Labour canvassers in what used to be its heartland with vast majorities reported that in whole streets, "There's no talking to people any more." They weren't listening. It didn't stretch to the same level of antagonism in this referendum, but there comes a point where people are unpersuadable.

It'll be interesting to see how support for EU membership stands up in Scotland in coming months. Maybe it's not so much EU membership in itself some people were voting against as the sort of EU membership we suffered from under successive UK governments. Or maybe there was an anti-Cameron element to the vote, or maybe it just stirred up too many memories about Project Fear in our own referendum - many of the arguments about the perils of Leave were identical to those about the perils of Yes, and to hear them coming from the very same public figures won't have helped!


ETA (nearly done, promise!): As for not campaigning with Cameron, we know that both main parties were using the Scottish referendum as a model for campaigning. Labour got slaughtered in Scotland for sharing "No" platforms and agendas with the Tories - far from the only reason they imploded so badly afterward, but definitely a factor, and one they took very much to heart.

I seriously doubt that any Labour leader in Corbyn's shoes would have wanted to be more closely associated with the Cameron-led campaign, for that reason. It's not as if he was running it well or serving as an effective figurehead anyway.