Damning research reveals swing voters believe the party lacks leadership, direction or any strong message under Jeremy Corbyn, prompting calls for moderate Labour MPs in the north to be offered a “lifeboat strategy” to protect them from association with the leader.

The research seen by the Guardian, which has been circulated among a selected group of moderate MPs, includes a string of highly damaging focus-group results and says Ukip-leaning Labour voters have “no reason to vote Labour beyond habit and social norm”.

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It suggests MPs must develop their own electoral strategy of “how to run locally in a challenging context and isolate from Jeremy without increasing perception of division”.

The party is facing a tough byelection challenge in Copeland, Cumbria, after the resignation of Labour’s Jamie Reed earlier this week. Though Labour has held the seat for decades, the party was only 2,560 votes ahead of the Conservatives at the last election and the majority of voters in the constituency voted to leave the EU in the July referendum.

The December report was written by James Morris, formerly the top polling adviser to Ed Miliband, and based on the findings from focus groups with Ukip-leaning Labour voters held over a number of months.

It suggests moderate Labour MPs should develop their own lines on controversial issues, such as freedom of movement, a narrative which has emerged in recent weeks among some former Miliband shadow cabinet ministers including Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham. “Ensure hard left is not the only well organised grouping inside the Labour party,” it says.

However, the conclusions of the report, also say that further public division in the party is unlikely to help. “Infighting”, “joke” and “total mess” are some of the first words that voters came up with when asked to describe Labour.



Crucially, the report says the wider public does not perceive Corbyn as being a break from Labour’s past, with many suggesting they would prefer a new generation of leader.

“He should just be sat on a barge somewhere going up and down,” one quote in the research says. Another says: “We need young blood, we need somebody to fight for us.”

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Corbyn is not perceived as being independent-minded or passionate, the research suggests. “The only thing that stands out is he’s got his little spin doctors around him that tell you this and tell you that, like a sheep,” one person said.



Another said: “If you listen to what he says, he’s just like that white noise in the background, because he hasn’t got any passion, he’s got no presence, really.”

Voters are not aware of many Labour policies apart from on the Trident nuclear programme, the report said. Labour’s campaign slogan against grammar schools - “Education not segregation” – was simply not understood, it said.

The focus groups repeatedly said they perceived that Labour “put others before the interests of British citizens”.

The report acknowledges that this is not new criticism, and has dated back to the Iraq war and perceptions of Tony Blair as “George Bush’s poodle”, but it says this is particularly important because Brexit voters saw the referendum as primarily about immigration, and research showed 56% of remain voters also wanted more control of borders.

It also states 67% of people in one set of focus groups said they did not know the main thing Corbyn and Labour were saying. The report qualifies that statistic by saying it is based on groups in November 2015, but says there is “no sign it has changed”.

Ukip is not seen as the only threat in Labour heartlands, and the report’s conclusion warns: “Urban Labour MPs should keep an eye on Lib Dems.”

One senior Labour source said: “There is no doubt some Labour MPs face a serious threat from Ukip and it’s one we’ve known about for a long time. Like it or not, many Labour voters and supporters want curbs on freedom of movement. If we don’t listen to our supporters then what happened in Scotland could happen in our heartlands in the north-west and the Midlands.

“It may not happen overnight, but it is something we have to come to terms with if we are serious about rebuilding an electoral alliance that can get us back into government.”

A Labour source said the research had not been commissioned by Corbyn’s office.