Labour leadership election: 61% of Jeremy Corbyn supporters would abolish monarchy

A majority of Jeremy Corbyn supporters – 61% – say they are against the institution of the monarchy with just over a quarter claiming they believe the world is run by a secretive elite, according to a YouGov poll.

The survey of 3,735 eligible voters in Labour's leadership election has shown, perhaps unsurprisingly that Corbyn supporters were overwhelmingly more likely to identify as left-wing with supporters of Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall saying they sat either left of centre or in the centre of the political spectrum.

More revealing, however, were questions asked of supporters on more specific issues. Fifty-one percent of Jeremy Corbyn's supporters said they agreed the United States was the greatest threat to world peace.

Forty-five percent of those likely to vote for the Islington North MP in the Labour leadership election also said they disapproved of the Royal Air Force participation in airstrikes against Isis. Twenty-eight percent of Burnham supporters disapproved of military action against the extremist group while 27% of the Cooper and 20% of the Kendall camps disagreed with airstrikes in Iraq.

YouGov found Corbyn supporters on the whole took a much more unanimous line on issues concerning the size of the state with regard to the nationalisation of the railways and healthcare. In many cases, other candidates' supporters also supported the same policy positions but expressed them with less conviction and were less uncompromising in how they would like them to be implemented.

Eighty-six percent of Corbyn supporters backed the nationalisation of utilities with 85% saying they wanted to see much more redistribution of welfare. Supporters of the Burnham, Cooper and Kendall camps while broadly in favour of these policies backed them in fewer numbers.

YouGov concluded from its polling of its electorate that Corbyn supporters were "not going to be 'reasoned with'" and were more interested in being inspired.

"Jeremy Corbyn being so dismissed by the establishment has helped him to acquire the enviable mantle of the 'change candidate'" the pollster said.

"Corbynites are on the fringe rather than the mainstream; but in terms of mood and personality, they represent a longing for an alternative that has an appeal far beyond the Left of the Labour Party," it added.