SUPPORTERS of Jeremy Corbyn were understandably elated with news of the Find Out Now poll suggesting the new socialist party he plans to create with Zarah Sultana will begin its life on level-pegging with Labour, at 15% in voting intentions for the next General Election.
It appears on the face of it to be the delicious, ultimate irony. Self-styled "moderates" within Labour spent years undermining Corbyn's leadership and ultimately drove him out of the party completely – all supposedly in the interests of "electability". They have now discovered that he's actually more than electable enough to pose an existential threat to Labour from the outside.
A note of caution is called for, though, because there's a long track-record of hypothetical polling questions exaggerating the likely popularity of new parties that are in the process of being set up.
There were a number of polls in early 2019 suggesting that the breakaway centrist party Change UK could be a major player in British politics – but that failed to materialise and the party folded within less than a year.
In 2007, Archie Stirling commissioned a YouGov poll that seemed to suggest his new centre-right Scottish Voice party could expect to take around 20% of the vote in that year's Holyrood election. In the event, Scottish Voice's actual support was only one-hundredth of that estimate.
It's true that Corbyn is a far better-known figure than Stirling, and will almost certainly attract much more than 0.2% of the vote. It's also true that the Find Out Now poll showing him level with Labour can be regarded as more credible than Stirling's 2007 poll, because it allowed respondents to make a direct comparison between the Corbyn party and the full menu of other parties.
But it's still unavoidably a flawed poll, because it's impossible to ask a hypothetical question of this type without drawing special attention to the addition of a new party that does not yet exist. That may in itself have been sufficient to artificially inflate the apparent support for the Corbyn party in the poll.
In truth, there's no way to meaningfully measure public backing for the new party until it's up and running, with a name, a public face, and a set of policies. But where the Find Out Now poll – and others like it – are of some value is in identifying which parties Corbyn can expect to attract votes from, if he does indeed enjoy some support.
The answer is clear: His votes will be coming overwhelmingly from Labour and the Greens.
The Greens are fortunate in that they have an obvious method of transforming the threat into an opportunity. Zack Polanski is currently standing for the Green leadership in England and Wales, and has indicated that he may be open to an electoral pact with Corbyn and Sultana.
But there is no equivalent get-out clause for Labour, who burnt their bridges with Corbyn when they expelled him and put up a candidate against him in Islington North.
Even if the real support for the Corbyn party turns out to be only half of the 15% suggested by the Find Out Now poll, it looks highly likely that would still harm Labour's vote significantly, possibly reducing them to third or fourth place – and to below 20% of the vote.
The UK may start to look very much like a country that is moving on decisively from the Conservative-Labour two-party system that has been in place for a full century.
