Labour General Election majority 'currently unthinkable'

Labour may win as little as 20% of the vote and fewer than 150 seats at the next general election, according to a think tank affiliated to the party.

New analysis by the Fabian Society suggests confusion over Brexit, a slump in support in Scotland, and Jeremy Corbyn's unpopularity mean Labour has virtually no chance of winning outright in the next election.

The damning assessment of Labour's prospects comes after a YovGov poll for The Times suggested support for Labour is now at just 24%, its lowest since Michael Foot was leader in 1983.

And it follows the Unite leader Len McCluskey apparently calling on Mr Corbyn to consider quitting if the polls are "still awful" in 2019, even though he later claimed he still backed the Labour leader.

After analysing existing poll data and historical trends, the Fabians predict that the next election, whether held imminently or in 2020, is very likely to see Labour win fewer than 200 seats for the first time since 1935, possibly falling to about 140.

Currently the party has 231 MPs.

Their report says Labour's general election vote over the past 40 years has tended to be almost eight percentage points lower than its poll rating in the second year of the preceding Parliament.

If this happens in 2020, the Labour vote could fall to 20% or less, the report concludes.

But using projections based on recent polls, the report says that even if either UKIP or the Lib Dems could tie with Labour on 20%, the electoral system would mean neither would win more than 20 seats, with Labour remaining at 140 to 150 and the Conservatives more than 400 seats, with a vast Commons majority.

Andrew Harrop, the Fabians' general secretary, who wrote the report, said Mr Corbyn and his team appeared to have little idea how to respond to such challenges or how to win back the four million voters who supported Labour in 2015 but say they would not do so now.

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Despite his triumph against Owen Smith in a leadership challenge last year, his team had produced "no roadmap" for overcoming Labour's plight, Mr Harrop wrote, while the wider Parliamentary Labour Party had become "barely audible", he claims.

"In place of the sound and fury of Jeremy Corbyn's first 12 months, there is quietude, passivity and resignation," he said.

"And on Brexit, the greatest political question for two generations, the party's position is muffled and inconsistent. This is the calm of stalemate, of insignificance, even of looming death."

The Fabian report says Labour's failure to produce a coherent response to Brexit is one of the main obstacles facing the party.

Using YouGov data, it calculates that the party has lost a net 400,000 votes since the last election among pro-Leave electors, and 100,000 among those who backed Remain, making its backing more strongly pro-Remain than before.

This poses a "Brexit dilemma", the study says, pointing out that Labour needs to somehow appeal more to Leave voters without alienating existing supporters who opposed Brexit.

The report stresses the need for Labour to accept that winning an outright victory in the next election is "currently unthinkable" and prepare instead for an era of "quasi-federal, multi-party politics", where it relies on the assistance of other parties like the Lib Dems or Scottish Nationalists.

While the proposed shakeup of Commons constituency boundaries would further disadvantage Labour, it is only likely to affect about 10 MPs, the report argues, making this a "sideshow".

Overall, Mr Harrop says this is "not a story of victory or death … but, whenever an election comes, the party must fight for every vote and every seat, because there is a huge difference between winning 150 and 250 MPs."

But Labour frontbencher Andrew Gwynne urged people not to "write off" the party.

The shadow minister without portfolio acknowledged there were challenges facing his party having "come out of a pretty tumultuous 18 months" with the general election defeat, two leadership contests and the EU referendum.

He told Sky News: "We have got to start looking outwards, we have got to reconnect with those voters that supported us in previous elections and that means that we have got to from now on unite, put together a policy platform and ensure that we represent those communities that we seek to serve in government.

"Let's put the divisions of the past behind us and make sure we start communicating with an aim to win the next election.

"Don't write us off three-and-a-half years before the general election."