It was dislike of Corbyn not Brexit that was the main driver of LAB’s GE2019 losses

And this was most pronounced in the North and the Midlands

If the Opinium survey on the day of the General Election is accurate then the departure of Corbyn, as will happen on April 4th with the new Labour leader, should have a significant impact on the party’s recovery.

You can see why Corbyn loyalists anxious to avoid the blame pouring on the their man should want to stick with the theory that LAB had its worst result since 1935 because of Brexit. But they wrong and this largish sample on the day poll which didn’t get much attention really undermines that. The regional split as seen in the chart sets this out clearly.

LAB lost 60 seats on December 12th 45 of them in the Midlands and the North which were the parts of the country where dislike of Corbyn was the greatest.

The question for the party now is whether its new leader will fare better. I thought Starmer was smart making the point of launching his leadership campaign in the North.

Note that the chart does not include Wales because there is no separate polling data.

Mike Smithson