Jeremy Corbyn needs to appeal to the eight million votes in Labour middle ground
Despite the size of party membership Corbyn's Labour are far removed from the millions in the electorate
Jeremy Corbyn’s numbers don’t stack up.
In yesterday’s victory speech he said the size of his victory, in what is now Europe’s largest political party, puts him on course to lead Labour back into government.
It does no such thing. In fact, it does the exact opposite.
A recent YouGov poll shows why he is wrong. It asked people where they placed Corbyn, and themselves, on a scale from “very left-wing” to “very right-wing”.
Turning their percentages into numbers of voters, we find that just under five million people regard themselves as “very left-wing” or “fairly left-wing”.
To be sure that’s a big number – but it is nowhere near enough to make Corbyn Prime Minister.
For a start, not all left-wing voters support Labour. Some will still vote Green, or Liberal Democrat or SNP. Four million is probably the maximum that even Corbyn could garner.
To return to government, Labour needs 12 million votes.
In other words, it needs eight million votes from people who do NOT regard themselves as left-wing.
The obvious place to look is the fifteen million who say they are “centre” or “slightly left of centre”.
Labour won three elections between 1997 and 2005 by appealing to precisely these voters.
They were hammered in last year’s election when they shifted to the Left and ceded much of the middle ground to the Tories.
Corbyn has moved his party much further to the Left – and voters have noticed.
Ed Miliband was too left-wing for millions of voters, but even so, just 30 per cent said he was “very” or “fairly” left-wing, while 36 per cent said he was “centre” or “slightly left of centre”.
The equivalent figures for Corbyn are 54 per cent left-wing, 9 per cent in or near the centre.
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These numbers explain why he is so wrong about his mandate from party members.
Of course he is more popular with left-wing voters than Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband.
No wonder so many of them have recently joined the Labour Party.
But the very thing that appeals to hundreds of thousands of new party members is what repels millions of the voters Labour needs to woo.
That’s not the end of the bad news for Labour.
Suppose Corbyn fell under a bus – or choked on a spoonful of his home-made jam – that wouldn’t of itself make Labour electable.
Corbyn’s rival, Owen Smith, offered policies in his own leadership campaign that were almost as left-wing as Corbyn’s.
Had Smith won and stuck to those policies, he, too, would have led Labour to defeat.
To regain power, Labour must rediscover its ability to appeal to the centre.
That requires not just a different leader but a far more moderate membership than the enthusiasts who this weekend are savouring Corbyn’s victory.