Didn't appeal to working class voters

The argument

Labour has traditionally drawn support from two major demographics: the British working-class and university-educated middle-class voters. Despite differing in cultural attitudes, these two segments of the British public came together under the Labour banner due to their shared economic interests. That coalition is what makes the party competitive, and it is also what makes it fragile, since the two halves are held together by economics alone. The loss of either one of these support pillars would prove disastrous in an election. Jeremy Corbyn's inability to appeal to working-class voters was ultimately his downfall. As a middle-class Londoner, he was always going to be a hard sell to the Northern working-class — a difficulty of biography rather than of policy, and one a leader has to work against from the first day. But going into the election campaign, Jeremy Corbyn was the most unpopular opposition leader in British history. He had a net approval rating of -60, a figure that leaves no margin in which persuasion might have closed the gap during a short campaign. The composition of his front bench did nothing to offset the problem. Not only was Corbyn unpalatable to Northern voters, but he also chose to fill his shadow cabinet with fellow middle-class Londoners. Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and Keir Starmer all came from neighbouring constituencies and suffered from the same challenges as Jeremy Corbyn in appealing to northern voters. A leadership drawn almost entirely from one city could not credibly present the party as speaking for the other half of its coalition, and that half is the half Labour lost.

Context

On polling day, Labour’s core support base, working-class, northern manufacturing towns, turned their back on the party. In some cases, areas that had voter Labour in every election for almost a century made the transition across the aisle and put their cross in the Conservative’s box. Jeremy Corbyn, as a middle-class north Londoner, was utterly ill-equipped to carry the northern vote.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Canvassers in working-class Northern and Midland communities testify that Jeremy Corbyn’s name rarely featured in conversations on the doorsteps. As far as they are concerned, he is just another middle-class Londoner leading the party. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair weren’t working-class heroes, but they managed to maintain the support of Labour’s fabled ‘Red Wall’. This indicates that it wasn’t Corbyn that was unpopular among working-class communities. He is just the latest leader of the party in a long line of posh politicians.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Corbyn's limited appeal wasn't the reason voters turned against Labour. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair weren't desirable leaders to Northern voters, but they never lost Labour's "Red Wall".