Member-only story
Surveying Labour Members
Is the Labour leadership election “narrowing”?
YouGov and Survation have published polls of Labour members for the leadership contest. Voting will close on 2nd April, with the new leader announced two days later.
A LabourList article stated that the race “appears to be narrowing”. Their article compares the results of YouGov’s earlier poll and Survation’s survey. This post looks at why we should have avoided such a conclusion.
Four Labour MPs are standing to replace current leader Jeremy Corbyn: Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Sir Keir Starmer, and Emily Thornberry. Clive Lewis also sought nominations from his fellow MPs, and later withdrew. Jess Phillips received enough parliamentary nominations, but quit the race on 21st January.
The contest itself runs under the Alternative Vote system. Members return ballots via the internet or posts. Members state their preferences.
This system eliminates candidates with the least votes in each round. A fallen candidate’s votes redistribute to the next stated preference. The winner is the one candidate to exceed 50% of cast votes.
There have currently been three published surveys of Labour members.
