Labour facing toughest electoral challenge in its history, claims academic

LABOUR is facing the toughest electoral pressures in its history, with “big questions” about the party’s ability to survive as a competitive opposition party, according to a new academic report.

Politics professor Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Kent, said that the EU referendum vote had left Labour facing a squeeze from rivals on both sides of the Brexit debate at the same time as Conservatives under Theresa May were enjoying “a near-record lead in the polls”.

Forecasts suggest that an early election could deliver Mrs May a majority in the House of Commons of more than 100 seats, while Labour “could be reduced to its lowest number of seats since the 1930s”, he said.

With a “deep and widening divide” between Remain-voting Labour supporters in London and Brexit-backing working-class voters in the industrial north and Midlands, Jeremy Corbyn’s party is having to fight off challenges from the Liberal Democrats and Ukip on opposite sides of the Brexit debate and is facing a “strategic dilemma” about its future.

Writing in a report for the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, Mr Goodwin noted surveys indicating “far more” voters trust the Tories than Labour with the economy, Brexit and immigration, the three subjects polls regularly rate as most important.

Mrs May is seen “far more favourably” than Mr Corbyn among voters across every social class and most age groups, with an overwhelming 57-point lead among pensioners, who are the most likely to turn out to vote.