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The 2017 Labour vote was bolstered by the remain vote, which had nowhere else to go in a vain attempt to stop Brexit.
andyp-
I don't think this is true at all. If anything the 2017 Labour vote was clinging on to leave voters—why would remainers vote en masse for a party that was promising to leave the EU??
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I'm not sure about that.
I think that 2017 was an election held on the the understanding that Brexit was a fait accompli given that Parliament had voted to trigger Article 50 three months earlier, with the backing of Labour.
I get the impression 2017 was an election about what sort of issues we would be dealing with looking past Brexit (in which Labour's vision was backed by 40% of the electorate despite poor leadership).
2019 was an expression of anger that it still hadn't happened yet, with Labour cast as the ones trying to hold it up.
Lots of voters interviewed put Corbyn's lack of leadership higher than Brexit in 2019 - but would he have had that image if he'd actually explained his position and not equivocated hopelessly about it, while drowning in the rest of the hostility he faced?
Lots of people's "if only" scenarios seem to revolve around Ed beating David.
Mine would be if Corbyn had stepped aside for someone more competent and dynamic after 2017. But that too would have probably floundered somewhere trying to please metropolitan liberals and the rest of the red wall.
bens0n
tbc
Labour have been shedding votes since 2001
The anomaly was Corbyn 2017, less so in 2019 pending Brexit scheissgheist