Hard-working members still putting in work to canvass and phone-bank, but results among usual Labour voters often down by well over half under Keir Starmer
Those Labour members who have kept their shoulder to the wheel to try to win seats for the party in the coming local elections, despite the leadership’s abuse of the membership, are reporting news in many areas that will send a chill down the spines of Keir Starmer and his dwindling cohort.
Phone-banking and canvassing of residents who voted Labour in previous elections are returning a ‘promise rate’ – a pledge to vote Labour this time around – of only 15-25% in many areas. Such promise rates are never 100%, but anything below 50% is a very bad sign.
And because this promise rate applies only to people who voted Labour before, this is not a reflection of increased unpopularity among voters in some places that never normally vote Labour anyway, but a reflection of the rapid draining away of support among people who usually do.
The news comes as polling suggests that Labour is trailing the Tories in Hartlepool, a seat that has never returned a non-Labour MP in its history – even when that meant voting for Peter Mandelson.
As the ‘TweetForTheMany’ Twitter account has pointed out today, when Jeremy Corbyn was leader his opponents were demanding his resignation if Labour failed to hold onto Oldham in a by-election – yet Corbyn increased the party’s majority:
If polls are correct and Labour loses Hartlepool – or even fails to win an improved majority compared to the Brexit-driven disaster of 2019 – Starmer’s credibility must be shredded even in the eyes of many who support him. And with ambitious right-wing hopefuls already sharpening the knives, it could spell the end of his short and dire tenure.
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