Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity among Labour members has plummeted, a new poll has found, as criticism of his handling of Brexit and the party’s long-running anti-Semitism scandal take their toll.
According to the YouGov survey of 1,100 party members for The Times, the proportion who think Corbyn should lead Labour into the next election has fallen to 56%, down from 74% in March last year. And while 80% thought he was doing a good job last year, that figure has dropped to 56%, with 43% saying his performance is poor.
Indeed, with fewer than one in five voters now backing Labour, and Corbyn facing growing challenges on several fronts, his leadership appears to be hanging by a thread.
Why has Corbyn lost support?
The Labour leader has always struggled to secure the backing of his MPs, but the support of the party members who swept him to power in September 2015 had held strong. However, concerns have been growing about his reluctance to pinpoint a Brexit policy – 56% of members in the new poll say he has dealt with Brexit badly – and his lacklustre response to anti-Semitism, a scandal that has plagued the party for more than a year.
A BBC Panorama documentary aired earlier this month reignited the debate about Labour’s handling of complaints of racism, leading three peers to resign. In a further blow, Labour peer Baroness Hayter was sacked last week as shadow Brexit minister after accusing Corbyn of leading with a “bunker mentality”, and saying that his team’s refusal to acknowledge their failings was reminiscent of the “last days of Hitler”, The Guardian reports.
What are the main challenges facing him?
Labour peers are said to be meeting this evening to discuss calling for a symbolic vote of no-confidence in Corbyn – a move that would be “extraordinary and unprecedented”, says BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith.
Among Corbyn’s possible opponents are his deputy, Tom Watson, who has been vocal in his criticism of the party’s response to anti-Semitism, and has called for an independent, rather than in-house, process for handling complaints.
However, Watson appears unlikely to take over in the top job. Half of the Labour membership quizzed by YouGov felt that Watson would make a “poor” leader – placing him behind shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry as potential replacements for Corbyn.
How is Corby fighting back?
This weekend, Corbyn launched a page on the Labour website entitled “No place for anti-Semitism” on which members can find “educational materials on a number of specific forms of racism and bigotry”. In an email to supporters announcing the move, he acknowledged that “anti-Jewish bigotry has reared its head in our movement”.
But despite such measures, the Labour leader is struggling to “fight on two fronts”, with his leadership on both Brexit and anti-Semitism in question, says Matt Chorley in The Times.
Tonight, Corbyn is to address a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party – a gathering that as Chorley notes, is “likely to be a grim affair”.
