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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Alan Johnson tells Left Unity they are not welcome in Labour - Politics live

Alan Johnson attacking Left Unity on the Daily Politics
Alan Johnson attacking Left Unity on the Daily Politics Photograph: Guardian/BBC

Afternoon summary

  • David Cameron has urged his Turkish counterpart to ensure that Ankara maintains direct communications with Moscow to avoid an escalation in tensions after Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane. As the Press Association reports, Ahmet Davutoglu phoned Cameron and explained that Turkey had taken protective action after the Russian jet was warned “several times” not to violate Turkish air space, Downing Street said. Cameron’s official spokeswoman told a Westminster media briefing that in the 10-minute call, Davutoglu “explained what had happened - that they had a Russian jet flying there, they had warned it several times not to violate Turkish airspace, but it had then proceeded to do so and consequently they had taken action to protect their airspace”. The spokeswoman added:

The prime minister strongly encouraged Prime Minister Davutoglu to make sure there was direct communication between the Turks and Russians on this, so a clearer understanding could be formed of what had happened and how to avoid this happening in the future and to avoid an escalation.

The spokeswoman also played down suggestions that this incident might hinder Cameron’s attempt to get MPs to vote in favour of Britain launching air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) in Syria next week.

  • Alan Johnson, the Labour former home secretary, has said that members of Left Unity are not welcome if they want to join Labour. See 3.44pm.
  • Fourteen Labour MPs have reportedly defied orders to abstain and voted with the Tories in favour of Trident. Another six Labour MPs defied the whip by voting against Trident in the vote on a motion tabled by the SNP.
  • Downing Street rejected the suggestion the Saudis and Qataris have exerted undue influence over the government. The claim was made by Paddy Ashdown this morning. (See 9.57am.) Ashdown also said David Cameron had suppressed the publication of a report into the Muslim Brotherhood under pressure from Saudi Arabia. Downing Street said the report would be published by the end of the year. A spokesman went on:

We have had long relationships with these two countries. We have worked closely with them on a whole range of issues. The strength of the relationship that we have means that nothing is off the table. We will go to them and talk to them about these issues.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Oldham West and Royton byelection - A round-up

Next week the Oldham West and Royton byelection will give some clues as to whether Labour is making any progress under Jeremy Corbyn. It should be a safe Labour seat, but it is turning into a tight contest between Labour and Ukip. Here’s an Oldham byelection round-up with some of the latest news and comment.

A number of Labour MPs are campaigning in Oldham today, with fears growing in the party that it could be in serious trouble in the by-election there. Even though Michael Meacher won the seat in May with a 14,000 majority, the fears that I reported last week about white working class voters turning away from Labour and plumping instead for Ukip seem to be growing. No MP who has been there has anything positive to say about what they’ve seen, other than that their candidate, Jim McMahon, is hugely impressive.

Even before the Paris atrocities, the tone of Ukip’s campaign in Oldham was clear. One early leaflet attacked Corbyn’s Labour Party for advocating uncontrolled mass immigration, wanting to axe the armed forces altogether and return the Falkland Islands to Argentina.

“If they want to try the patriotic card, they can try as hard as they like,” Labour’s candidate Jim McMahon tells me in a member’s plush house in the east of the constituency. McMahon was a Remembrance Sunday organiser for five years, and both his father and grandfather were members of the Territorial Army. Young, local and a popular leader of Oldham Council, McMahon is no Corbynista, proving himself pragmatic and business-friendly. But local popularity and campaigning skills can only do so much set against deeper national trends, as copious fizzy Labour candidates dragged down by Ed Miliband in the general election would attest.

Although we meet over a pint, Bickley defies the main caricatures of a Ukip candidate. He is neither a crusty retired colonel nor a tedious tub-thumper. As the son of a Labour-supporting trade unionist, the 62-year-old implores local Labour voters to free themselves from “political Stockholm syndrome,” and “break free of their tribe”.

Remember, Oldham West is a so-called “core area” filled full with “our people” - a mix of white and Asian working class and small business people. If Labour cannot win and win convincingly in a constituency of this composition, then we’re in trouble. Second, much was made during the Labour leadership campaign that Jeremy had what it takes to reach out to voters alienated from politics, chiefly Labour people who’ve drifted to UKIP, or lapsed into voter abstention. Can his leadership inspire these folks back to the fold? Well, going by the inside track among activists who’ve worked the seat solidly these last few weeks, there is a Jeremy effect but, unfortunately, not the one the tens of thousands who supported him were hoping for. Apparently, one-in-ten of our regular supporters are either thinking of sitting at home or flirting with another party on by-election day.

  • The candidates have today taken part in a hustings. (Unfortunately, no one seems to have been doing a live blog.)
  • Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary, is among the Labour figures who have been campaigning for McMahon today.

20 Labour MPs reportedly defy the whip - 6 against Trident, and 14 in favour

According to ITV’s Chris Ship, six Labour MPs voted against Trident, and 14 voted in favour.

That would make 20 MPs in total defying orders to abstain - a rebellion (a rare double-sided rebellion) but a fairly modest one. Given the real, Grand Canyon-wide extent of divisions within the Labour party at the moment, this result probably deserves to be notched up as a triumph for the party whips.

Updated

MPs have voted now on Trident. Only 64 MPs backed the SNP motion opposing Trident renewal. Given that there are 55 SNP MPs, and that Plaid Cyrmu and Caroline Lucas were also backing the SNP, there were probably only a handful of Labour MPs voting against Trident.

Some 330 MPs voted against. There are 330 Tory MPs in the Commons, but they won’t all have been voting. We should find out how many Labour MPs voted with them soon.

McCluskey tells Corbyn he must stop saying 'the first thing that comes into his head' now he's Labour leader

According to the York Press, Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, has said that Jeremy Corbyn needed to improve his performance as Labour leader. He could no longer just say “the first thing that comes into his head”, McCluskey said at an event at York University.

Jeremy Corbyn has to come to terms with it [his leadership]. He has been a very principled MP and been able to say what he likes, but now he’s a leader and in leadership he can’t necessarily say the first thing that comes into his head. He has to take some balance.

McCluskey also said that Corbyn’s “shoot to kill” comments were “inappropriate”.

Len McCluskey
Len McCluskey Photograph: REX Shutterstock

During the exchanges on Daily Politics Left Unity’s Simon Hardy said Jeremy Corbyn was the best hope for Labour. Corbyn was putting the principles back into politics, Hardy said, and he said that Labour would have a fighting chance if MPs like Alan Johnson supported their new leader.

Johnson said this argument, about Labour being “Tory-lite” until Corbyn’s election as leader, was “the kind of rubbish I’ve heard spouted all my political life”. Commenting on Hardy, he said:

This guy needs to be in a different political party ... This guy despises the Labour party and he’s got no place in the Labour party.

Johnson also accused Hardy of being a middle-class intellectual.

Later Left Unity took issue with this on Twitter.

The party also insisted that it was not trying to join Labour.

Alan Johnson tells Left Unity they're not welcome in Labour

The Trident debate in the Commons has been rather less lively than this encounter on the Daily Politics between Alan Johnson, the Labour former home secretary, and Simon Hardy from Left Unity.

Left Unity is a political party set up by Ken Loach and others two years ago to provide a leftwing alternative to Labour.

Now, given the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, it has decided at a conference at the weekend to stop fighting parliamentary elections so its members can focus on supporting Corbyn.

On the Daily Politics Simon Hardy, a Left Unity spokesman, said people were joining Labour now, not because of people like Johnson, but because of people like Corbyn. Johnson hit back angrily and he told Hardy that, if he wanted to join Labour, he would not be welcome.

I’ve been with Jeremy all the time as a Labour member of parliament. He never went off on to one of these flights of fancy. I’ve been with Jeremy while we introduced the minimum wage, when we introduced the education maintenance allowance, when we introduced sure start children’s centres, when we reduced child poverty, when we attacked pensioner poverty, when we gave trade unionists the right to be represented, the right not to be sacked for going on strike. You have done none of that. All you have done is print put your leaflets despising the Labour party and suggest that over here there is a plausible alternative. Now you have found that that doesn’t work so you now want to come into the Labour party. And you won’t be welcomed.

Updated

Roger Godsiff, the Labour MP, is speaking in the Trident debate now. He says the claim that Trident is an independent nuclear weapon is “a myth”. Britain does not make the warheads, he says. It leases them from America, which makes them, and the submarines have to go to Georgia to have them fitted, he says. And, although in theory Britain has operational independence, he says in practice he does not believe that is the case. When challenged, he says MPs should remember what happened when Britain tried to defy America over Suez.

Back in the Commons Jamie Reed, the Labour MP for Copeland, which is next to Barrow and Furness in Cumbria, has just finished speaking. He said unilateralism had been “tested to destruction” by Labour in elections in the past, and the public did not support it. He also said the previous Labour government deserved credit for cutting the size of its nuclear stockpile.

Earlier I mentioned Labour’s decision to stop using G4S for its conference security in the light of concerns about its work in Israel. (See 12.30pm.) In response a G4S spokesman said: “In its final assessment of these Israeli contracts, the OECD made clear that it did not find any general failure by G4S to respect the human rights of Palestinians, or any failure to respect human rights in our own operations.”

Here is Patrick Wintour’s story on today’s shadow cabinet meeting. And here’s how it starts.

Jeremy Corbyn has told his shadow cabinet that he wants it to come to a collective view about whether to support British airstrikes in Syria.

He said it should meet on Thursday after David Cameron makes his case to MPs for British involvement in airstrikes. An initial discussion would then be held.

He has also asked the shadow cabinet to reconvene for a special session on Monday afternoon ahead of the weekly meeting of Labour MPs in the evening.

Corbyn asked shadow cabinet members to consult their constituency Labour parties over the weekend, remarks that will trigger a massive anti-war lobbying campaign from groups such as Momentum, the pressure group set up to support Corbyn.

The Labour MP John Woodcock is speaking now. He is strongly pro-Trident (he represents Barrow and Furness, where Trident submarines are built) and he is a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s. But he today he is directing his fire at the SNP, criticising the record of the SNP government in Scotland and calling SNP MPs “robots”.

Perkins says Labour review will be 'the widest public debate in the history of military decision making'

Perkins winds up by saying Labour’s review will look at the Trident issue, focusing on facts and debunking myths.

This is an issue on which we believe there needs to be more light and less heat. We will not political games on an issue as important as this. When that review has been concluded, the Labour party will have a position that has been the subject of the widest public debate in the history of military decision making and we will be able to have real confidence that the position reached is one the party, and indeed the country, can support with confidence.

SNP MPs are using Twitter to argue that Labour and the Tories are indistinguishable on Trident.

(These claims are not actually accurate. The Tories have a settled policy on this; Labour do not.)

Nigel Dodds, the DUP leader at Wesminster, intervenes. Given the fact that Jeremy Corbyn has said he would never use nuclear weapons, hasn’t Labour policy already been decided?

Perkins says that this is a decision that will apply for 20 years or more. It goes beyond who is leader now, he suggests.

Michael Fallon intervenes. Will Maria Eagle lead the Labour defence review with Ken Livingstone, or without him?

Perkins says it is standard for Labour policy commissions to have a co-convenor from the national executive committee. Livingstone will play that role. But Corbyn has said Eagle will lead the review, he says.

He says politics is changing. There is a mood for more transparency.

Multilateralism has been supported by the main parties for years.

That means these issues have not been debated openly for years, he says. Those in favour of Trident should not be afraid of a debate.

He says it would be “ludicrous” to pretend there are not divisions in the party.

Perkins says Labour is currently committed to a minimum, credible independent nuclear deterrent.

That was in the manifesto, and all Labour MPs fought the election on that basis.

He says the last Labour government reduced the stockpile of nuclear warheads.

He says Jeremy Corbyn was then elected leader, and his views are well known. But he appointed Maria Eagle as shadow defence secretary, and her pro-Trident views are well known too, he says.

Labour's Toby Perkins accuses SNP of 'cheap political point-scoring'

Toby Perkins, the shadow defence minister, is responding to Fallon on behalf of Labour.

He says Labour is reviewing its defence policy.

There are different views on Trident in the Commons, he says.

But he says that all MPs should be able to agree that this is not a matter on which they should be playing politics. The SNP could “barely contain its delight” that Labour is reviewing is policy, he says. He accuses the SNP of “cheap political point-scoring”.

The SNP’s Pete Wishart asks if Labour MPs will support Jeremy Corbyn if he manages to make unilateral disarmament party policy.

Perkins says the party is considering its position at the moment.

Toby Perkins
Toby Perkins Photograph: Guardian/BBC

Fallon says the deterrent is for the whole of the UK. The people of Scotland will benefit from the security it provides.

Earlier this year, when parliament last voted on Trident, there was a majority in favour of 327.

He says Britain’s allies and adversaries will be paying attention to today’s vote.

If you can be sure that no threat to Britain will emerge in the 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s, you should vote with the SNP, he says.

But he says he cannot be certain of that, which is why he backs Trident.

Fallon says there have been wild reports claiming Trident will cost a total of £167bn. But those assume 2.5% growth every year, he says. He says the government’s estimate is that Trident renewal will cost £31bn, with a contingency taking the total cost to up to £40bn. He says HS2 will cost £50bn.

The SNP’s Alan Brown says the cost of Trident has gone up. That means the money for conventional defence spending must have gone down.

Fallon says that is not what the defence review yesterday showed. It showed defence spending going up.

Fallon says the size of the naval base at Faslane is set to increase.

The submarine fleet requires skills that keep our workforce at the cutting edge.

Under the SNP’s plans, thousands of jobs would go, and those skills would be lost, he says.

He says the SNP said firm commitments must be made to workers on the Clyde. But workers do not want commitments. They want a job.

He quotes the head of the GMB in Scotland saying the notion that diversification can produce equally good job is “Alice in Wonderland” politics.

Fallon says just because the government is renewing Trident, that does not mean it does not want multilateral disarmament.

He says he himself decided to reduce the number of warheads on Trident submarines from 48 to 40.

And the government is committed to reducing the overall stockpile of warheads to 180, he says.

But other government have not reduced their nuclear stockpile.

Kelvin Hopkins, the Labour MP, says that is not correct. Iran has given up its nuclear programme.

But other countries have not, Fallon says.

Carol Monaghan, an SNP MP, says her husband is a submariner. She says submariners do their job diligently. But that does not mean that some of them do not have doubts about the nuclear deterrent.

Fallon says Monaghan will know what her husband thinks better than anyone. But he says he has yet to meet a submariner who does not believe in the policy of deterrence.

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, is speaking now.

He says it is “worrying” that the cross-party support for Trident is breaking down.

He says it was Labour leaders, Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, who wanted Britain to have nuclear weapons.

And he says he is disappointed that, although she supports Trident, Maria Eagle, the shadow defence secretary, is not the chamber for the debate. And it is worrying that Ken Livingstone has been made co-chair of Labour’s defence review.

John Woodcock, the pro-Trident Labour MP, says he will back Fallon on the issue. Can Fallon give an assurance that the timing of the vote on Trident renewal next year will not be determined by political considerations?

Fallon says he can give that assurance.

Michael Fallon
Michael Fallon Photograph: Guardian/BBC

O’Hara says if Trident ever was an answer, it was an answer to a 20th century problem.

It does not make us any more safe, he says. It is a political project.

It is about holding on to the remnants of an imperial past, he says.

And he says it is being paid for on the backs of the poor.

O’Hara says that he hoped that Jeremy Corbyn would be able to take his party with him on Trident.

But the “paltry” turnout from Labour today suggests that will not happen, he says.

O’Hara is right about a “paltry” Labour turnout. Here is the proof.

In the Commons O’Hara quotes from what Tony Blair said about Trident in his memoirs. Blair said:

The expense is huge, and the utility in a post-cold-war world is less in terms of deterrence, and non-existent in terms of military use.

Blair said that there was a respectable case for getting rid of Trident, but that he had decided not to because it would amount to too big a down-grading of Britain’s power.

O’Hara also says Trident can only be used with the support of America. And by the end of next year the US commander in chief could be Donald Trump, he says.

In the chamber Brendan O’Hara says that the debate is not being held to embarrass Labour. Labour can embarrass itself on its own, he says.

And he insists that getting rid of Trident will not mean the end of the Faslane naval base. The SNP want it to have a bright future as a conventional naval base, he says.

Brendan O’Hara
Brendan O’Hara Photograph: Guardian/BBC

In the debate Kelvin Hopkins, the Labour MP, has just said he will also be defying party orders to abstain. He is opposed to Trident, and he will be voting with the SNP, he said.

At least three Labour MPs are planning to defy the whip and vote in favour of Trident this afternoon, according to the New Statesman’s George Eaton.

Ben Bradshaw posted about this on Twitter this morning.

Jamie Reed has told the Sun he will defy the whip because he thinks replacing Trident is “morally right”.

And John Woodcock has been hanging pro-Trident leaflets on the doors of MPs’ offices.

The shadow cabinet has been meeting this morning. According to my colleague Patrick Wintour, Jeremy Corbyn told his colleagues that he wanted them to come to a “collective view” on whether or not to back military action against Islamic State (Isis) in Syria. That suggests he wants to avoid giving Labour MPs a free vote.

Brendan O’Hara, the SNP defence spokesman, is opening the debate.

He says Plaid Cymru and the Green MP Caroline Lucas are backing the SNP motion. (See 12.47pm.)

MPs debate Trident

MPs will soon start debating an SNP motion on Trident.

The motion is very simple. It says:

That this House believes that Trident should not be renewed.

Labour MPs have been told to abstain. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said last night the party was abstaining because the vote was just an “SNP stunt”.

The SNP is firmly opposed to Trident and Brendan O’Hara, the SNP’s defence spokesman, told BBC News a few minutes ago that McDonnell was wrong.

We had hoped that the Labour party under its new current leadership would see that this would be a great opportunity for cross-party working, and to do something positive and to make the positive case against Trident renewal. And it is very, very disappointing that they have taken this stance that they have.

However, without impugning O’Hara’s integrity, it is probably fair to say that the SNP is not too disappointed that the Labour party has chosen to abstain on this issue. That’s because the abstention highlights two Labour party splits on this issue: the split between Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, who are opposed to Trident, and most Labour MPs, who back Trident and were elected on a manifesto defending it; and the split between the Scottish Labour party, which voted recently to oppose Trident renewal, and the UK Labour party (which decides defence policy) which is still officially in favour of Trident (although a policy review is underway).

The SNP believe that their opposition to Trident is a vote-winner in Scotland where people are significantly more opposed to nuclear weapons than in the UK as a whole.

Lunchtime summary

  • A YouGov poll has shown that two thirds of Labour party members think Jeremy Corbyn is doing well as leader. But the same survey highlights a large gap between the views of Labour members and the public at large on key issues. (See 11.11am and 11.26am.)
  • Labour’s executive has voted to boycott G4S, the firm which has been providing security at the party’s conferences for more than a decade. As the Press Associaton reports, a member of the executive said the decision had been taken because of concerns that the company had been in breach of human rights obligations.
    G4S has been involved in controversy over its links to Israel. Jennie Formby of Unite, who was at the NEC meeting, said: “The issue of G4S was raised during an agenda item reviewing the annual party conference. It was therefore the appropriate opportunity for the NEC to discuss the use of G4S to provide security for future conferences. More than half the NEC was present for this discussion. The decision to end the security contract with G4S was taken because of concerns that this company has acted unethically and has been found to be in breach of the human rights obligations of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies.” The G4S contracts in Israel which have been the subject of criticism include servicing and maintenance of baggage scanning equipment and metal detectors used at checkpoints, and installation and maintenance of electronic security systems, such as closed circuit television (CCTV), access control systems and public address systems within a number of Israeli prisons.

UPDATE: A G4S spokesman said in response: “In its final assessment of these Israeli contracts, the OECD made clear that it did not find any general failure by G4S to respect the human rights of Palestinians, or any failure to respect human rights in our own operations.”

  • Alzheimer’s campaigners have welcomed Government plans for a new £150m dementia research institute.

Updated

Stephen Bush from the New Statesman says in a blog today there is no prospect of Jeremy Corbyn being ousted. (See 10.08am.) In her Times column today (paywall), Rachel Sylvester takes a different view. Here’s how it starts.

It’s no longer a question of “if” but “how”, not of “whether” but “when”. There has been such a fundamental breakdown of trust between Jeremy Corbyn and his MPs that it can be only a matter of time before they move against him. One backbencher says: “It’s always been the case that we need to get rid of him as quickly as we can. The only question now is how soon can that be?” It was the contempt — rather than anger — that was most striking at last week’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, where the leader was greeted with silence instead of applause — an unprecedented display of disrespect. “There’s no pretence,” according to an MP who was there. “People know he’s not up to it. Every day that goes on more damage is done.”

Peter Kellner, YouGov’s president, has written an analysis of the Labour poll which is now up on the YouGov website. Here’e an excerpt.

Like Gaul in Julius Caesar’s time, Labour these days is divided into three parts. There are those who voted for Jeremy Corbyn to be party leader, those who voted against him and – by far the biggest group – Labour voters across Britain who played no part in his election.

The main conclusion from YouGov’s latest poll for The Times is simply stated. The first group still loves Mr Corbyn, the second group still rejects him and much of the vital third group see him as a principled but wrong-headed vote loser. An early re-run of the party leadership election would see him re-elected with a big majority – while an early general election would see him comprehensively rejected ...

What will worry many Labour MPs is that Mr Corbyn’s supporters seem to know that they they are out of touch with the wider public, but don’t mind. We asked Labour party members, and the electorate generally, to say which of seven attributes they associate with Labour’s leader. The figures differ, but the rankings are much the same. Corbyn’s supporters, his detractors, and Labour voters generally, all put “principled” at the top of the list, and “likely to lead Labour to victory at the next general election” last. It was the only one of the seven qualities picked by fewer than half of those who voted for him.

YouGov poll shows views of Labour members at odds with views of the public on 6 key issues

The YouGov poll (pdf) also contains questions about policy, and these show that on six key issues, the views of Labour party members are sharply different from those of the public at large - and even from those of Labour voters.

The deficit

  • 88% of Labour members want the government to change its deficit reduction strategy, even if that means the deficit staying longer or getting worse. Only 29% of adults generally, and 54% of Labour voters, agree.

Stopping housing benefit for the under-25s

  • 90% of Labour members are opposed to stopping housing benefit for the under-25s. Some 61% of Labour voters are also opposed, but only 44% of the public at large.

Limiting child benefit and child tax credit to two children

  • 71% of Labour members oppose limiting child benefit and child tax credit to two children. Some 42% of Labour voters also oppose this, but only 26% of voters generally.

Benefits cap

  • 54% of Labour members oppose limiting the amount a family can claim in benefit to £26,000 a year. Some 24% of Labour voters also oppose the benefit cap at this level, but only 17% of voters generally oppose it.

EU membership

  • 83% of Labour members want Britain to say in the EU. But only 66% of Labour voters want this, and only 40% of the public generally.

Air strikes against Isis in Syria

  • 58% of Labour members are opposed to the RAF taking part in air strikes against Isis in Syria. But only 29% of Labour voters are opposed to this proposal, and only 22% of the public generally.

YouGov poll on Labour views on Corbyn - Details

The full YouGov figures (pdf) are very interesting. YouGov polled 1443 members of the Labour “selectorate” - party members, registered supporters and affilated supporters able to vote in the leadership contest - and the tables break the results down by various categories, as well as comparing what the “selectorate” thinks with the views of Labour voters and GB adults generally.

For simplicity’s sake, I have highlighted the figures for Labour members. Generally the views of full party members and the “selectorate” are similar, but they are not exactly the same. That explains why the Times news story talks about 66% of members thinking Corbyn is doing well (see 9.05am) while the Times graphic has the figure 65% (for people who voted in the leadership contest who think he is doing well - see 9.37am.)

There is are also some interesting findings about policy. I will post those separately soon.

  • Some 26% of Labour members think Corbyn is doing “very well”, and 40% say he is doing well - giving him a total “doing well” rating of 66%. Only 11% think he is doing “very badly”, but another 21% think he is doing badly, giving him an overall “doing badly” rating of 32%.
  • 50% of Labour members think Corbyn is unlikely to ever become prime minister. Another 40% think it is likely he will become prime minister. Amongst those who voted in the leadership contest (members and others) for non-Corbyn candidates, 79% think he is unlikely to ever become prime minister.
  • But 56% of Labour members think he should continue to lead the part into the next election. Some 18% think he should resign now, and another 21% think he should go before the election.
  • Amongst those members who want Corbyn to go before the election, Andy Burnham is the favourite alternative leader (21%) followed by Yvette Cooper (15%), Dan Jarvis (10%), Chuka Umunna (8%) and Hilary Benn (5%).
  • A majority of Labour members (54%) think it is better for a party to propose policies it believes in, even if they will stop it winning an election, than to compromise. Some 33% say it is best to compromise. Among those who voted for Corbyn in the leadership contest, 71% say a party should stick to its principles even if that stops it winning.
  • 55% of members blame MPs opposed to Corbyn for the shadow cabinet being divided. Only 18% blame Corbyn and his allies, while 25% think both sides are equally to blame.
  • 51% of members think MPs should face a full reselection before the election. Another 41% think MPs should only face full reselection if they are doing badly, or if they are particularly unpopular.
  • Labour members support Corbyn even though they don’t think electability is one of his strengths. Asked to rate him according to seven strengths, being likely to win the election came last (33% agreed), behind being competent (41%), strong (43%), sharing my political outlook (57%), being courageous (59%), honest (84%) and principled (89%)

Updated

YouGov have now posted the full tables from their Labour poll on their website (pdf). I will post a summary shortly. There is quite a lot of detail there not covered in the Times story.

Stephen Bush at the Staggers has a good blog about the YouGov poll. He says that although most Labour MPs think the party “is heading for a heavy defeat in 2020 at best and annihilation at worst”, the leadership rules mean there is no chance of Jeremy Corbyn being ousted.

A “Stop Jeremy” candidate will have to be a) able to, in the words of one insider, “unite the party from Lisa Nandy [on the soft left] to Wes Streeting [on the right]”. b) secure an electoral result that was, if nothing else, no worse than the 2015 election, and c) defeat Jeremy Corbyn among members.

You might as well add d) be able to transmute iron to gold or e) feed 5,000 with just five loaves and two fish. No politician with those qualities exists within the parliamentary Labour party. Corbyn is going nowhere, which means that if a reckoning is on its way, it is the Labour leader’s opponents who will be the worse off.

James Schneider, a spokesperson for Momentum, the pro-Corbyn activist group, has posted a tweet praising Bush’s blog.

Ashdown accuses Cameron of suppressing Muslim Brotherhood report under pressure from Saudi Arabia

Paddy Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader, has accused David Cameron of suppressing a report on the Muslim Brotherhood to please Saudi Arabia. He made the claim this morning in an interview on the Today programme in which he claimed that the Tories were too soft on Arab countries which have helped to fund Islamic State (Isis).

Ashdown said the government should be putting pressure on Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar to get them to do more to combat Isis. He said he was not saying that the Saudi and Qatari governments had funded Isis, “but their rich businessmen certainly have.”

He went on:

The failure to put pressure on the Gulf states - and especially Saudi and Qatar - first of all to stop funding the Salafists and the Wahhabists, secondly to play a large part in this campaign, and other actions where the government has refused to have a proper inquiry into the funding of jihadism in Britain, leads me to worry about the closeness between the Conservative party and rich Arab Gulf individuals.

To back up this claim, Ashdown then said that the government had suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood report under pressure from Saudi Arabia.

Some time ago the prime minister, I understand in a single phone call almost off the top of his head, agreed to fund an inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood on behalf of the Saudi royal family. That didn’t find what the Saudis wanted it to find - that the Muslim Brotherhood is an extremist organisation. That report has never been published because it came to a conclusion unhelpful to the Saudis.

Ashdown also said that when David Cameron published his strategy for combating Isis in Syria on Thursday, it would have to include measures to ensure the Gulf states were playing their part.

Paddy Ashdown
Paddy Ashdown Photograph: James Drew Turner for the Guardian

The YouGov poll for the Times (paywall) also illustrates how, on some issues, the views of Labour members are out of step with the views of the public as a whole.

YouGov also asked about Britain taking part in air strikes against Islamic State in Syria. A majority of adults (58%) are in favour, and 49% of Labour voters support bombing.

But amongst Labour members and those eligible to vote in the leadership contest (affiliated supporters and registered supporters) the figure is just 30%. And, amongst those who voted for Corbyn, the figure is a mere 14%.

YouGov poll figures
YouGov poll figures Photograph: The Times/THE TIMES

The Guardian has been reluctant to publish stories based on polls since the general election because the pollsters were so wrong about the gap between the Conservatives and Labour. We’re waiting the results of the polling industry’s inquest into what went wrong. But that does not mean all polling figures are wrong. At the general election the pollsters were right about Scotland and about parties like Ukip, and YouGov’s own polling of the Labour membership during the leadership election turned out to be sound.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has had a fairly wretched week. His response to the Paris attacks highlighted his views on security that left some of his MPs aghast and at Westminster there are many who will be gone before the next election.

But Labour members have not had the memo. Today the Times is splashing on the findings of a YouGov survey which suggests that party members are pleased with his performance. Here’s the Times front page.

And here is an extract from the story (paywall).

The hard-left party leader was elected in September with 59 per cent of the vote. Now 66 per cent of Labour members believe that he is doing “well”, according to an exclusive poll.

The findings are a remarkable endorsement after clashes between the leader and his shadow cabinet, his questioning of the shoot-to-kill policy for terrorists, and confusion over the party’s approach on austerity. Critics said that Mr Corbyn had had one of the worst periods of his leadership last week, yet his supporters remain impressed.

For the first time since the leadership election, YouGov polled all those who could have voted in the contest. Two thirds of the party’s full members, registered supporters who paid £3 to sign up, and trade unionists approve of Mr Corbyn’s performance. This rises to 86 per cent among those who voted for him.

Mr Corbyn’s approval rating is higher than the 59 per cent who voted for him because he has impressed 49 per cent of of Andy Burnham’s supporters and 29 per cent of Yvette Cooper’s.

These findings suggest that there is a large gap between the views of the Labour membership and the views of Labour MPs, most of whom did not vote for Corbyn and some of whom have been highly critical about developments since he became leader.

I will post more on the poll, and the reaction.

Later a related Labour split will be on display when MPs debate an SNP motion calling for Trident not to be renewed. I will be covering that in some detail too.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee. My colleague Graeme Wearden will be covering this on his business live blog.

Around 12.40pm: MPs begin a debate on an SNP motion saying Trident should not be renewed. The vote will be at around 4pm.

1pm: John Hayes, the security minister, and Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner for specialist operations, give evidence to the Commons home affairs committee on countering extremism.

As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.

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