The Communist Party has published the January 2020 issue of its news sheet Unity! which contains an analysis of the election result and the tasks of the Labour movement along with news of the party’s 100 year anniversary celebrations.
Download pdf here
The CPB and fellow Brexiteers cannot get to grips with the fact that Labour lost votes across the board but these loses were not evenly distributed. The highest level of defections were found among strong Leave seats (60% +) with a huge 10.4% swing against Labour, decreasing to `just’ 6.4% in strong Remain areas. So we can safely assume that Brexit was the driver for at least 4% of Labour’s losses in Leave voting areas, the remaining 6.4% swing, which is itself huge, cannot be due to the Party’s failure to take an explicitly pro- Brexit ‘line’.. Clearly there are a number of factors at play. The following UGov poll breaks down the reason for Labour’s defectors into the following categories:
This tells us rather than Brexit, Corbyn was the major factor This, admittedly, very limited poll confirms what anyone out on the knocker already knew. However Corbyn’s unappealing personality apart, the matter is more complex: his leadership has to be seen within the context of our `incontinent policies’ and more importantly our position on Brexit. Ashcroft’s focus groups make plain the contempt many had for Corbyn, but this arose, at least in part, because of the incoherent Brexit message imposed by the Corbyn clique. So while this poll give weight to the claim that it was Corbyn and all his works that lost it, it also throws a bone to the Lexiteers and Blue Labour, who can berate both Remain and Corbyn.
Understandably all the leadership contenders will use the polls to rationalise and factionalise their positions. What is unlikely to happen is that the party in general – and its left-wing in particular – will draw any lessons from the biggest defeat since 1935.
Ha ha ha ha ha! No political party platform has ever conceded having been wrong!