EU vote: Labour’s Unreachables

One Labour MP told me their local party has pretty much given up on certain areas in the constituency that are considered lost causes for Remain.

The MP said: “We concentrate on four or so wards, and don’t go into the white working class wards here… there’s no point.”

While we were in Birmingham and Walsall following the Labour Remain battle bus around, we dipped out of the tour to check out Coalpool, an inter-war estate with much higher white electorate than some other parts of the area.

Voters here were pretty hostile to the EU though you found some who were uncertain. We didn’t bump into anyone who’d heard from Labour’s campaign to Remain in the EU.

The Remain camp believes there will be some Labour seats where the voters are more prosperous and overall it still believes it can get 55-60 per cent of Labour voters across the whole of the country to back Remain, targeting a message about the economy and Labour values at more middle-class supporters.

One campaigner there thinks 40-45 per cent of Labour identifiers may back Leave. The latter group are often blue collar, often in seats where Ukip did quite well in the general election, those seats often ones where the turnout was closer to 50 than 60 per cent (general election turnout was 61 per cent for the whole UK).

Some Labour MPs are still ploughing the lean furrows of estates where support is low. One Remain strategist explains that quite a few Labour MPs are realising after knocking on doors that they represent constituencies that will vote to Leave come the 23rd June, in some cases by a margin of 20 per cent.

Even if Remain were to win next week that leaves those Labour MPs in an uncomfortable place with many of their voters.

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