Labour people, its time to dump Corbyn

mrginge

westernpromise wrote: »

Nah.

Non-voters break exactly the same way as voters so there is no constituency of hidden Labour support there. If Labour's polling 28% generally then 28% is where they stand with non-voters.

Non-voters are not the unique or alienated demographic Khorbiyn supposes. Mostly they're just people who live in safe seats in which there is no point voting because it's in the bag for someone.

Nobody is suggesting that every non-voter would automatically vote labour.

What is more realistic is that a non-voter is more likely to be persuaded to vote against the govt than for it.
It is also more likely that you can persuade a young non-voter to participate than an old one.

So the bias amongst non-voters is, I would expect, considerably weighted towards an opposition vote rather than being a straight reflection of general polling.

But even if that's not the case and there are only 28% available to labour, then if they get those to actually vote while the other 72% remain non-voting, then labour end up with more than 28% of the total don't they.

The strategy being undertaken by labour is theoretically sound. How successful they can be and how it turns into electoral seats is another issue though.

seven-day-weekend

wotsthat wrote: »

Become.

I voted Tory last time because I wanted to save the country from having Ed Miliband as PM and Ed Balls as Chancellor. You're very welcome - no need to thank me.

I don't think the transformation is fully complete because I'm yet to be convinced Theresa May can turn water into wine.

I voted Tory for this reason too, and have seen no-one better to be PM than Mrs May, so at the moment will remain a Tory voter.

Matt_L

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I voted Tory for this reason too, and have seen no-one better to be PM than Mrs May, so at the moment will remain a Tory voter.

Me too...

Owen Smith seemed to be even worse with his total disrespect for the referendum and the electorate..

Dan Jarvis is a man id like to hear more from...

Filo25

mrginge wrote: »

Nobody is suggesting that every non-voter would automatically vote labour.

What is more realistic is that a non-voter is more likely to be persuaded to vote against the govt than for it.
It is also more likely that you can persuade a young non-voter to participate than an old one.

So the bias amongst non-voters is, I would expect, considerably weighted towards an opposition vote rather than being a straight reflection of general polling.

But even if that's not the case and there are only 28% available to labour, then if they get those to actually vote while the other 72% remain non-voting, then labour end up with more than 28% of the total don't they.

The strategy being undertaken by labour is theoretically sound. How successful they can be and how it turns into electoral seats is another issue though.

Most people who don't vote in General Elections just aren't that politically engaged and you'll struggle to get them to vote anyway, unless its a topic they're very engaged with.

Brexit is a good example of that, anecdotally a lot of working class voters who don't normally vote, turned out and voted Leave, because it was something they actually cared about.

Labour isn't the only opposition in town though, a lot of those voters may well be more tempted to vote UKIP if they could be motivated to vote.

Filo25

Matt_L wrote: »

Me too...

Owen Smith seemed to be even worse with his total disrespect for the referendum and the electorate..

Dan Jarvis is a man id like to hear more from...

Its not as easy on Brexit for Labour as it is for the Tories, as most Labour voters and Labour members voted Remain and so were out of step with the majority of the electorate as a whole.

For the Tories most MPs may have favoured Remain but the majority of both their voters and Members appear to have voted Leave (in line with the country as a whole) so that is a much easier political calculation for those MPs to make now in terms of how they want to position themselves.

seven-day-weekend

Filo25 wrote: »

Its not as easy on Brexit for Labour as it is for the Tories, as most Labour voters and Labour members voted Remain and so were out of step with the majority of the electorate as a whole.

For the Tories most MPs may have favoured Remain but the majority of both their voters and Members appear to have voted Leave (in line with the country as a whole) so that is a much easier political calculation for those MPs to make now in terms of how they want to position themselves.

I agree with this and I for one fit that profile. I voted Conservative in the GE (having voted LibDem in the 2010 GE and UKIP in the European), and Leave in the Referendum.

westernpromise

mrginge wrote: »

Nobody is suggesting that every non-voter would automatically vote labour.

What is more realistic is that a non-voter is more likely to be persuaded to vote against the govt than for it.

Why is that more realistic? And how do you vote against something?

It is also more likely that you can persuade a young non-voter to participate than an old one.

Exactly wrong. Based on actual votes, it is less likely that you can persuade a young non-voter to participate than an old one. Why? Because old voters have seen Labour governments, and know what happens.

So the bias amongst non-voters is, I would expect, considerably weighted towards an opposition vote rather than being a straight reflection of general polling.

You'd be wrong. Pollsters have studied this and found the opposite. But yours is exactly the kind of complacency bordering on delusion that's going to deliver Theresa a crushing 3-digit majority in 2020.

But even if that's not the case and there are only 28% available to labour, then if they get those to actually vote while the other 72% remain non-voting, then labour end up with more than 28% of the total don't they.

No. What your simplistic analysis wholly fails to consider is where these voters are. Clue: they're not all in marginal seats. But they'd need to be. These non-voting Labour voters are in fact mostly in Labour or Tory safe seats. We know this because most seats are Labour or Tory safe seats - about 400 are, in fact. Most non-voters are non-voters because they live somewhere their votes make no difference.

To form a majority Khorbiyn needs to gain 100 seats over the 2015 result. He's going to lose about 20 due to the boundary corrections, so he needs to gain 120 in total. Let's generously assume the SNP implodes and loses every single Scottish seat to Labour. That leaves Labour needing to convert about 60 seats from Tory to Labour to achieve that majority. Converting seats from other opposition parties is no good as these were opposition seats to begin with so were never in the Tories' column. These must be direct Tory to Labour wins.

Do Labour's insightful strategists know what the 50th to 60th most marginal Tory seats are? I'll tell you. Here they are with the 2015 Tory majority and the Tory and Labour vote share as a percentage in each seat:

Seat Con vote share Lab vote share
Hendon 54.7 36.0
Northampton South 49.9 25.8
Dudley South 51.6 27.0
Wells 49.7 4.4
Waveney 50.0 31.7
Erewash 50.0 29.8
Morecambe and Lunesdale 52.2 29.6
Warrington South 50.0 33.5
Enfield Southgate 55.0 33.5
Preseli Pembrokeshire 46.9 22.6
Crewe and Nantwich 52.1 32.2

In each of those seats Labour was an average of 9,600 votes or 23% behind in 2015. They have slipped back in the polls since then so it's probably more like 28% now. To win them Labour would need to be winning the votes of something like 80% of the non-voters and all of those 80% would have to turn out and vote, something they have a history of not doing.

And why would they? Whether Labour or Conservative-inclined, it was abundantly bleedin' obvious who was going to win Northampton South in 2015. That was always going to be David Mackintosh with double Labour's vote share. Likewise, can we guess who's going to win the substantially Jewish Hendon seat in 2020? Will it be the Tory who got nearly 55% last time, or will it be the party that got 36% last time before it elected a leader who consorts with Hamas? I'm going to right out on a limb here and say Labour will not win that seat in 2020.

And this is a rosy scenario in which Yeremiy's message wins back every Scottish seat. If, more realistically, his message of sucking up to the IRA and closing down the Scottish nuclear bases wins back none, then he has to take 120 Tory seats rather than 60. That means seats like Justine Greening's Putney (59.5% versus 24.5 for Labour), Bexleyheath and Crayford (55.3 versus 20.7), and my old turf of Stafford (55.3 versus 24). In seats like that, if every non-voter voted Labour, the Tories would still win. Their 2015 majorities exceed the number of non-voters.

The strategy being undertaken by labour is theoretically sound. How successful they can be and how it turns into electoral seats is another issue though.

It's completely delusional, unmoored from any semblance of reason, and absolutely 1,000% sure to fail.

westernpromise

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

I'm astonished they're persisting with him.

I can only guess they're hoping brexit will be awful and blamed on the Conservatives and a mass protest vote will get him and his band of merry communists into power.

I reckon Brexit will be hugely positive for the Tories. If it's painful, too bad, it was what was voted for, so there can't be any argument that it's the government's fault. The LibDems are Remainers and are trying to thwart Brexit and Labour likewise cannot be trusted, so if we had a Brexit election the Tories would cruise it.

mrginge

Filo25 wrote: »

Most people who don't vote in General Elections just aren't that politically engaged and you'll struggle to get them to vote anyway, unless its a topic they're very engaged with.

Brexit is a good example of that, anecdotally a lot of working class voters who don't normally vote, turned out and voted Leave, because it was something they actually cared about.

Well that's kind of my point.
Labour are pursuing a strategy to engage those people rather than switch those who didn't vote for them last time.

That would seem sensible if they are now following a 'proper' left wing agenda, since the drifters around the centre aren't suddenly going to become trots.

However hard it is to get a non-voter to actually start caring, its probably a hell of a lot easier than getting Middle England to start wearing sandals and singing the red flag.

Labour isn't the only opposition in town though, a lot of those voters may well be more tempted to vote UKIP if they could be motivated to vote.

UKIP are probably better focusing on stealing labour and Tory voters than trying to pursuade non-voting youngsters that their brand of facism is the future.

The lib dems have no identity other than anti-Brexit at the moment. They will improve off the back of it but they have to motivate the centre left labour voters to switch and that's hard when they have zero quality and a record of betraying their voters.

Labour can't possibly be a left wing party and at the same time actively fight off UKIP and the LDs. They really have to find their new support base.

The Tories of course have nothing else to do other than not screw up Brexit. If they do that even reasonably then they will get over the line imo. And let's all hope they do because would you really trust any other *current* party to not totally shaft the economy?

All these games and strategies will only be judged when the election comes.

TrickyTree83

westernpromise wrote: »

I reckon Brexit will be hugely positive for the Tories. If it's painful, too bad, it was what was voted for, so there can't be any argument that it's the government's fault. The LibDems are Remainers and are trying to thwart Brexit and Labour likewise cannot be trusted, so if we had a Brexit election the Tories would cruise it.

The electorate is fickle.

If the Conservatives don't deliver an acceptable Brexit they're going to get a hiding from someone somewhere, sitting governments usually do. I believe this is the plan Labour have, it's the only one with some semblance of plausibility about it as you've aptly demonstrated prior to this post, non-voters is a non-starter.

As you've said, 120 or so seats from Conservative to Labour, Jeremy and his acolytes have to hope for a tremendously bad Brexit. It's like trying to win at poker when you've got high card 7. You need to hope you can BS your way to the finish line.