YouGov: Five more things we discovered about Labour members

YouGov have carried out a survey of Labour party members to gauge their views on the current leadership contest and some other topics. The results are here. These were the most interesting findings to me:

Willingness to compromise

Only around 7% of members whose first preference for leader is Rebecca Long-Bailey are willing to make moderate compromises on Labour values in order to make the party more electable. For members whose first preference is Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy or Jess Philips, the percentage willing to make moderate compromises is 53% or higher (the survey was conducted before Philips withdrew her candidacy). 54% of Rebecca Long-Bailey's supporters are willing to make small compromises, but 32% are not willing to make any compromises. The percentage of supporters of the other candidates not willing to make any compromises is 7% or less.

Popularity of leaders

Tony Blair is the least popular Labour party leader in history with the current membership; 62% of members surveyed have an unfavourable view of him compared to 37% with a favourable view. Jeremy Corbyn is the most popular, with 71% viewing him favourably to 29% who view him unfavourably.

Just over a quarter of members did not know enough about Clement Attlee to say whether they viewed him favourably or unfavourably.

Despite being widely regarded as the most similar Labour leader to Corbyn, the current membership are relatively ambivalent about Michael Foot (45% view him favourably and 35% view him unfavourably).

The strangest finding to me is that Ed Miliband's ratings are almost identical to Jeremy Corbyn's; 70% view him favourably compared to 27% who view him unfavourably. I personally can't fathom what Ed Miliband did to deserve this level of acclaim, and I saw no evidence of that kind of support for him when he was leader, in contrast to the support among Labour members for Corbyn, which has been very clear.

Corbyn got nearly 60% of the vote in the first (and only) round of the 2015 leadership election, and nearly 62% in the second election the following year, whereas Miliband got around a third of the vote in the first round of his leadership election, and only just scraped above the half needed to win in the final round against his own brother. Nevertheless, for some reason the current membership view Ed Miliband more favourably than Clement Attlee, who led the party for twenty years to Miliband's five, won two general elections to Miliband's zero (one of which was a landslide victory, despite being fought against a national hero who had just saved the world from Hitler), nationalised the railways, electricity, gas, the steel industry, the Bank of England, all civil aviation, road haulage and telecommunications, and founded the NHS.

Popularity of Labour organisations

Labour members are split on Momentum; it is seen favourably by 46% of members, and unfavourably by 42%. Of all the Labour-aligned organisations the survey asked members their view on, Momentum was viewed unfavourably by the highest percentage of people, just behind Labour Friends of Israel, which 38% of members viewed ufavourably. Only 17% of members viewed Labour Friends of Israel favourably (the lowest favourability rating of all the organisations).

UNISON is the most popular organisation, with 75% of members viewing it favourably. Labour Friends of Palestine had the second lowest unfavourability rating at 12%, just behind UNISON on 10%.