Party leader must not be a eurosceptic, LabourList poll results show

Labour members’ strong backing for a pro-EU position is underlined today by the results of LabourList’s latest survey.

As the referendum campaign formally opened this week, more than half of readers (58.7 per cent) said they would not back a Labour leader who voted to leave the EU. Just over a quarter (28.4 per cent) said they would support a leader who came out in favour of the Out campaign.

The results illustrate how much weight party members attach to the their leader’s stance on the referendum and help explain the difficult balancing act struck by Jeremy Corbyn, who has long been a eurosceptic but who ultimately swung behind Labour’s campaign to remain in the EU.

The divide over Europe is, however, as nothing when compared to the ferocious row splitting the Conservatives. It deepened further today when Lord Howard, the former Tory leader and mentor to David Cameron, declared he is backing the Out campaign.

Corbyn’s decision to back the pro-EU campaign showed that he was listening to members – which, of course, they like.

He has pledged to give the whole party a greater say in policymaking and, when asked, whether members’ views or those of constituents should come first, a majority (51.7 per cent) of LabourList readers said members’ opinions should be the priority. Nearly four in every 10 (38.7 per cent), however, said the views of local people should come first.

Many past Labour leaders have begun the job by pledging to open up the policymaking process. It hasn’t always happened but, with Corbyn, one can see the strong intention to give members a voice, not least because they are more in tune with him on issues like the renewal of Trident, while the public takes a different stance on the nuclear deterrent.

One area where party members and the public appear to be sympatico is the long-running junior doctors’ dispute. With medics considering a series of further “escalating” strikes, more than half of LabourList readers (55.7 per cent) said they would support a walkout that includes emergency care while a third (34.9 per cent) said they were against the move.

At the time of the first walkout doctors received strong public support, with 64 per cent of people blaming the Government for “the dispute lasting this long” and 13 per cent blaming doctors, according to an IPSOS Mori poll for the Health Service Journal. A further 18 per cent said both sides were “equally at fault”.