Out of the 35 Labour MPs who still support Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party, only three of them are in marginal seats.



The stark division between the leadership preferences of Labour members and Labour MPs has led to discussion about whether MPs who oppose Corbyn have a better or worse understanding of Labour's electoral prospects than the membership.

Are Labour MPs who may have to contest key marginals in the next election less likely to support Corbyn?

A BuzzFeed News analysis of the public positions of Labour MPs indicates that there is some truth to this. While on many measures support for Corbyn is evenly distributed through the parliamentary Labour party, Corbyn supporters are underrepresented in the most marginal Labour seats. The analysis also suggests that a large bulk of Corbyn's support comes from MPs who were elected in the last election.

Overall, 165 Labour MPs are critical of Corbyn, 30 remain neutral (based on their public statements), while 35 are supportive.

Of Corbyn supporters, only Paul Flynn, Cat Smith, and Margaret Greenwood won their seats with a margin of less than 10% in the 2015 general election.

As shown in the chart below, Labour MPs in marginals (shown at the bottom) are the most likely to be overtly critical of Corbyn, who is on course to remain Labour leader by defeating challenger Owen Smith in the leadership contest, which ends this month. While the trends across both anti-Corbyn and neutral MPs are slight, the relative lack of pro-Corbyn MPs in the most marginal quartile (the 25% of Labour seats with the smallest majorities) is noticeable.

Meanwhile, the largest number of Corbyn-supporting MPs are found in the safest seats: