by Trevor Fisher

The Corbyn phenomenon is starting to attract academic attention, and is clearly not understood at any level by the parliamentarians and other observers. It is time to take the phenomenon seriously, as it will not go away. However unlike the 1980s left surge, which was largely activist driven so the approach of the party establishment was to shift to OMOV to outflank the activists with a mass membership, the current surge seems to be a mass membership of Corbynites – though Momentum may not be critically significant – while the activists are resistant. The recent YouGov poll puts the support for Corbyn highest in new members and lowest in the older membership.

If the new members are Corbynites the effect will be to undermine the activity base of the party and weaken the attempt to get a Labour government. As set out below, the research throws a grim light on the two theories I have heard in the last week, do nothing and allow JC’s regime to implode, or set up a shadow opposition in the Commons which will match each official pronouncement with an unofficial and critical one.

The research into the post 2015 membership

Professor Tim Bale, using the YouGov data of 2026 members and supporters who joined the Labour Party after May 2015, and comparing with previous data in May 2015 of members ‘when Ed Miliband was leader’, the new members were much the same age as the Miliband era members at just over 51. The youth surge has not translated into member/supportership. Six out of ten have degrees, the same for both groups, but contrasting the pre and post 2015 membership “they are even more middle class, “with 78% of them (compared to 70%) of them being ABC1”.

The survey found 31% were Labour returners – 40% for the over 50s who may believe after Miliband resigned they ‘got their party back’. New members are even less likely to belong to Trade Unions than those who were members before 2015. 25% were union members – rising to 30% with those joining after Corbyn was elected – whereas 39% of Labour members under Miliband were trade unionists.

Depressingly the surge has made the membership even more unrepresentative of the people Labour is supposed to represent than it was before.

Labourists or Corbynistas?

Joiners who are primarily Corbyn supporters is a recent phenomenon. Of full members, while 64% would vote Corbyn, this breaks down to 46% pre 2015, 68% who joined during the 2015 election and 80% who joined after he was election, suggesting that people now join the Labour Party to support Corbyn. Professor Bale describes these as Corbyn’s “Praetorian Guard”, which is markedly in favour of reselection, including mandatory reselection, to ensure MPs toe the Corbyn line. 32% believe that MPs who “continually vote against the party’s agreed line in Commons votes should be deselected”, and those who joined after the leadership contest record a higher figure at 38%. In fact new members are hostile to public criticism of the Leader, the survey showing that 55% believe that “Labour MPs who persistently and publicly criticise the leadership in the media should be deselected”, rising to 68% of those who joined after Corbyn was elected. The Praetorian Guard speaks.

However Corbyn is seen as a winner

The most significant result is that “the most recent joiners are most confident that a Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn will win the next General Election” to wit “some 64% of Labour’s post GE2015 membership believe that Labour is likely to win the next General Election – a figure that rises to 77% of those who joined after Corbyn became leader”.

However the new members don’t intend to work with the electorate to make it happen. The survey suggests the new members are clicktivists (or slacktivists) as has been seen elsewhere in the political universe. While 68% of Labour’s post GE2015 members and supporters have promoted Labour on social media (likely to be preaching to the converted) and 88% have signed an electronic petition on behalf of the party, only 15% have taken part in door to door or telephone canvassing or helped at a party function, only 28% have delivered leaflets. “Some 63% said they had put no time at all in for the party” in the recent elections, and “61% that they have never attended a party meeting”.

While Professor Bale suggests that this means the “obvious enthusiasm for deselecting those hostile to Jeremy” would not be acted upon, the evidence points to something else. Corbynistas seem motivated to deselect an MP, but not to hear their reports, discuss their comments or do any work in the constituency. Frank Field is not a hero, but his comment to J K Rowling that the new membership risks becoming “an execution squad of Labour MPs” has substance. It will do the same damage to Labour’s public standing that mandatory reselection did in the early 1980s.

It is also a logical conclusion that failure at the next General Election would be blamed by the new members on the criticism of the leader, and not the the leader’s actual performance. New members believe that Jeremy Corbyn is leading Labour to victory, and only those who criticise him will stop this. Any serious discussion of the actual performance of the Labour Party electorally in the next few months has to take this factor into consideration.

Trevor Fisher was a member of the Labour Coordinating Committee executive 1987-90 and secretary of the Labour Reform Group 1995- 2007

Tags: Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leadership contest, Labour selectorate, Tim Bale, Trevor Fisher, YouGov