Sophy Ridge, Sky News Politics Presenter

New polling figures have sparked fresh despair among Labour MPs worried about Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

The Labour leader is now more disliked than liked in every voter group polled - even Labour members. The Conservatives have led in the last 67 consecutive surveys.

MPs are becoming increasingly twitchy about the looming by-elections in Copeland and Stoke.

If Labour were to lose, it would be the first time the Government won a seat from the opposition in a by-election for 35 years.


Rumblings about Mr Corbyn's leadership are growing.

Clive Lewis's resignation over the Article 50 vote - starting the Brexit process - led to a flurry of excited headlines about the possibility that he could mount a challenge.

Corbyn: 'Talk of standing down is nonsense'

According to the Sunday newspapers, even those in Team Corbyn have started polling public reaction to possible successors from the left, including Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner (something they have denied).

These questions over Mr Corbyn's future, and the rumours that he has set a date to quit, will hearten MPs disillusioned by his leadership.

There is, however, a harsh reality that those in Labour need to accept: Mr Corbyn has become a useful scapegoat for the wider existential problems in the party.

Once he's gone, centrist Labour supporters croon to each other, everything will be better. Labour will be an election-winning machine once more. This is the stuff of fairytales.

In Parliament last week Mr Corbyn was faced with an impossible choice: back Article 50 and risk alienating the Labour voters who passionately backed Remain, or try to block the process of leaving the EU and anger the party's supporters who equally passionately voted to leave.

This is a problem that will not be solved merely by deposing the leader. The most exciting thinkers on the Labour benches have yet to put forward a convincing solution

He is damned whatever choice he makes.

The Labour Party has always prided itself on being a broad church, bringing together disparate groups under one umbrella.

Since it was founded in 1900, Labour has transformed politics in the UK by successfully uniting the liberal left with the working class, combining two rather different voting blocks in order to challenge the Conservative Party.

That alliance is now under threat.

Labour voters in constituencies like Cambridge expect very different things from the party to areas like Barnsley - two Labour constituencies that I have visited for Sophy Ridge on Sunday - where views could not be more contrasting.

This is a problem that will not be solved merely by deposing the leader. The most exciting thinkers on the Labour benches have yet to put forward a convincing solution.

Sky Views is a new series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: UK politicians must not copy Trump