Over 60 per cent of Labour members want to sack the Queen, only 25 per cent support national borders, and just 15 per cent are proud of Britain’s history.
In a major YouGov poll commissioned by Ian Austin MP, who left the Labour Party and denounced its lurch to the far left after a series of antisemitism scandals — for which the party is currently under investigation — Labour members were asked their view on a range of views on issues from abolishing the monarchy to nuclear disarmament. Both policies received overwhelming support.
Pollsters found that the Jeremy Corbyn-led opposition party now holds views well outside the British mainstream. For example:
- 50 per cent said they would feel “angry, embarrassed, or bored” if asked to sing the national anthem, compared to just 20 per cent who would feel “proud or happy”.
- 48 per cent agreed “Nations should remove borders and people should decide where they want to live”, compared to just 25 per cent who disagreed
- 43 per cent were “ashamed” of Britain’s history over the past 300 years, compared to just 15 per cent who were “proud”
68 per cent of Labour members said that “The foreign policies of the British government and Western allies like the USA” were either more to blame or equally to blame for radical Islamic terrorism as “groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS”.
More respondents also blamed the British government for The Troubles in Northern Ireland than blamed the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) terror network — 32 per cent to 27 per cent — despite the fact that a clear majority of people in the British province backed the Union with Great Britain over unification with the Republic of Ireland in a 1973 referendum.
They may be taking their lead from the party’s top leaders, Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell, who both back surrendering Ulster to the Republic in its entirety, with the latter having praised IRA members use of “the bullet and the bomb” in their campaign.
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, who would be the Secretary of State responsible for policing and security under a Corbyn government, has also backed the terrorists, opining that “every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us” in a 1984 interview in which she also described the Province as an “enclave of white supremacist ideologies” and said she “couldn’t identify as British” despite being born in London.
Perhaps more worrying in terms of its immediate implications is Labour members’ attitude towards government control of the free press, with 79 per cent saying they would support “a future Labour government passing new laws limiting who can own national newspapers”, compared to only 13 per cent who said they would impose such a move.
51 per cent also said they would support “a future Labour government taking greater control of broadcasting media”, compared to 40 per cent opposed.
Ian Austin said his party had “been poisoned by a culture of extremism and intolerance” under Jeremy Corbyn, and that it had become a “destructive force”.
However, the poll also appeared to show that the concerns of now former members like Austin about antisemitism, in particular, have not been taken on board, with 66 per cent insisting the party does not have a “serious problem with antisemitism”, compared to 23 per cent who agreeing that it does.
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