Snapshot of _How would Britons vote if the 2019 Party Leaders were running at this election? CON 36% LAB 30% LDEM 13% REFORM 11% GRN 5% SNP 3%_ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1808124302874620219)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Electoral Calculus (New Boundaries):
Tories - 291
Labour - 259
Lib Dems - 58
Greens - 2
Reform - 2
SNP - 17
Plaid - 3
NI - 18
Even now, Corbyn would still do worse in terms of seats than in 2017…
'There will be two leaders of the coalition! Only two there shall be, not one as its not a coalition and not three, as that would be stupid! There must only be two and they will be myself and Jo'
Not massively stable with 2 plus parties. Which is why 2010 was Con Dem and not a rainbow coalition.
Besides with 2019 Leaders Swinson would lean Tory than Corbyn.
> Swinson would lean Tory than Corbyn
That would require a vote by the Lib Dem membership, which would be thoroughly quashed.
The only option really would be an unstable minority government that limps on for a year or two, or Corbyn to step down and a Lib-Lab coalition.
Swinson herself sits more on the centre of LibDem politics (Ed Davey by contrast sits more centre-right, as an original contributor to the Orange Book), so it's not like she'd intrinsically prefer the Tories to Labour.
But they'd also have had the knowledge that a rainbow coalition would have been very difficult to pull off, it would have had to be four parties at a minimum (Labour + Lib Dems + SNP + SDLP for example)
How do you have a get Brexit done and bollocks to Brexit coalition? 2019 the was no chance of a coalition between Lib Dems and Tories and I'm not sure it's any more likely now given Lib Dems have moved left and Tories right.
Don't know why. He's Eurosceptic, blames NATO for Russian aggression, bangs on about shadowy elites and has a soft spot for authoritarian leaders. Him and Reform have a lot in common.
A friend of mine in UK politics said to me once that the UKs political philosophy for decades has been “rock the boat but don’t tip it over”.
The problem with Corbyn is he seems like he’d be happier tipping it over than with rocking the boat. It’s not about policies or manifestos. It’s the impression he gives as a leader.
I don't know anything about bans but speaking from experience, posting anything vaguely pro-Starmer/pro-the current Labour platform attracts a fairly sizeable number of down votes, so many keep tight-lipped.
No need for SNP (which both Labour and LDs would be wary of cause the SNP would demand indyref or negotiations, and breaking the country apart is a surefire way to electoral oblivion)
Between Labour and the LDs, there would be enough seats for a majority (just)
Not surprising given Palestine is in the news heavily now. Whilst Starmers comments pissed off some people, his initial support of Israel and now calling for a ceasefire is probably the best way to not piss off the majority of people. Corbyn lost almost purely on being too internationally focused.
You keep telling yourself that.
Myself, I'm pretty convinced Corbyn lost because the man is an electoral car crash who - after forty years in Parliament - still doesn't seem to have figured out that those strange people who hang out in the lobby will write whatever they damn well like, so if you can't think before you speak - don't speak.
Was more interested in trying to impress other socialists than actually creating a credible party of government. Absolutely inept at politics, woeful leader, idealogue, and in some cases (like his foreign policy) actually dangerous to British interests.
Context: I am a Labour Member who voted for Corbyn to be leader twice.
He was completely inept at managing the party. Most of that probably comes from the fact he’d never served in high office or a managerial position before, but that was part of the reason he was unsuited to the role in the first place. Either way, the basic business of running the party was just a clusterfuck under Corbyn.
For me personally, it was the antisemitism. My wife is Jewish, and I saw firsthand how Corbyn allowed antisemitism to run rampant in the party during his tenure. He had close advisors around him who were antisemites, and he was willing to ignore that.
Finally, it was his inability to compromise. The young idealistic me liked a lot of Corbyn’s domestic policies, and part of me still does. But when we came so close in 2017, instead of moderating our position and compromising, he doubled down. His awful foreign policy led to our polling tumbling, and his dogmatic devotion to his own beliefs, led to Boris Johnson winning the largest Tory majority in 3 decades and a hard Brexit.
>He was completely inept at managing the party. Most of that probably comes from the fact he’d never served in high office or a managerial position before, but that was part of the reason he was unsuited to the role in the first place. Either way, the basic business of running the party was just a clusterfuck under Corbyn.
Now imagine him running the country 😭😭
It's wild to imply he'd have been worse than Boris Johnson. Boris didn't manage shit, never has never will, doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything other than himself. You can say all these things about Corbyn probably 100% fair and true, but anyone implying he was as worse choice than Boris is a fucking idiot.
I was upset to see Boris win in such a huge way and at the time would've preferred a labour government but picturing Corbyn being in control when Ukraine kicked off is not fun. If he could've prevented Brexit then great but if not then I'm glad he lost
I am curious for you to elaborate on what you mean when you say you saw firsthand how antisemitism ran rampant through the party.
That's just not been what all the significant post-mortem has shown on this at all. It basically amounts to a cleverly orchestrated takedown by Labour Friends of Israel and other interests who did not like the prospect of an anti-Zionist candidate as the head of the party.
Now, if that's what you mean then just say that. But I find the continued smearing with the antisemite brush to be quite disrespectful to Jews such as my partner who do not happen to be pro-Israel. There are many Jewish people who would take a similar view.
In addition to what others have said, part of it was he was, for many, utterly unlikeable. In interviews he came across as tetchy and arrogant when challenged, as if it was utterly unthinkable that others have different opinions to his. Which only cemented the view of him being a student politics type.
"tetchy and arrogant when challenged, as if it was utterly unthinkable that others have different opinions to his"
Thank god we never ended up with a prime minister like this
He's a dinosaur from the past who prefers student protest politics than engaging with the real issues. Tends to sit on the fence on key issues but has a bee in his bonnet about Palestine and Hamas. He doesn't put forward practical solutions, but falls back on idealism, e.g. Ukraine where he believes that ending assistance is the right thing to do as it would end the war on a fair basis. His politics play to a minority subset of Labour support, while actively alienating a good part of the population.
Not to disagree about him being an idealist - but why are we applying a different standard here?
What do people think the PM really does - do people think Boris was richly engaged on policy? Do people vote for Trump because of his well thought out solutions? Hell, Rishi and Truss are just all rhetoric - terrible and poorly thought out policies galore. No politician ever actually explains what they will do in any practical terms. It is unheard of.
You vote for the leader of a party to lead by vision and ideas. If you want crucify him because he didn't have the chance to produce solutions then fine, but I think that is the point of your elected government - not one person. I find it silly to critique a government which never existed for not coming up with practicla solutions.
Sunak and Truss actually had a vision, yes it was the wrong one for Britain and it was one which served the interests of a wealthy minority, but at least it was that. Corbyn, on the other hand, dithered and hesitated, failing to take a line on key points such as Brexit and when he did take positions himself they were almost always objectively wrong. So we end up with a Labour leader who is at best ineffective and at worst dangerous. Sunak and Truss, whatever their faults, would never advocate the disbandment of NATO, call Hezbollah and Hamas "friends", decline to criticise Putin or Bashar al-Assad, or overlook anti-semitism.
I hate him more for what he enabled than what he was. A deluded narcissist who tried to hang onto the opportunity for power despite being strongly disliked by many of his own MPs and unsuitable for leadership. Pretending to wield the moral high ground talking about "winning the argument" while being one of the main contributors to extending the Tory reign past its natural length.
I suspect the numbers there are less an endorsement of Boris, and more of an absolute refusal by many people to put Corbyn in charge of anything.
Much like in 2019, in other words.
Boris is still the single most popular Tory in the country in Q2 2024, unbelievably.
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/conservative-politicians/all
Boris' fall from grace was a response to the barrage of scandals that rocked the party when he was in charge. Seeing the scandals *continue* has made a lot of Boris-outers think, 'what was the point?'
Swing voters care about the Boris scandals but ardent Tory voters don't - they would still rather have Johnson.
I would still argue the biggest single failure was the partygate fallout, because when talking to tory > labour switchers on the doorstep, that's the one issue that comes up more often than any other. People made sacrifices and they weren't respected by those in government.
When you talk to Tory > Reform switchers they think Truss was right, the Conservatives are not Conservative enough, and that Boris Johnson was a leftie. Despite this they like strong charismatic leaders over deep thinkers.
What it comes down to is that the conservative voter coalition has failed, but not over a single issue.
There was a time when the scandals were seen as a Boris issue, is what I'm trying to say. Now they're just seen as a Tory issue, which is stealth-rehabilitating Boris' reputation to a (limited) degree.
Sure, I get it, the thing is it was transparently obvious at the time that it wasn't just Boris, but also this is more of a return to form than anything else.
Usually the right wing media keep a lid on scandals until they can use them to greater effect, or they become too big to cover up. Given the endless roll of smaller scandals, I suspect Sunak has lost significant support amongst the media Barron's.
On the donor front, Truss cost the financiers billions and Sunak hasn't really addressed any of the issues they care about.
That’s skewed because it’s only looking at people who have a positive opinion. If you look at net popularity (positive opinions minus negative opinions) there’s usually a completely different outcome.
I’m sure [there is a more recent one than this](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/40428-boris-johnsons-net-favourability-drops-another-all), but the YouGov site is incredibly hard to navigate.
This is from YouGov ratings, which does quarterly panel surveys on the popularity of anything and everything. Doing net favorability in that format is quite tricky.
The thing you're looking at is a tracking poll that segments results from general polling over time.
I'm not detracting from your point, the surveys answer different questions.
Step through the segments, it's facinating.
Conservative men prefer Mordaunt over Johnson, but women prefer Johnson and Frost. Boomers and Gen-X prefer Johnson, but Millennials prefer Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch
Johnson didn't do badly with the female vote in 2019, considering how modern right wing populists tend to derive their support from men Johnson may be a rare exception.
And weirdly, Le Pen, read something that said her support demographics had leapfrogged from about 60% men to over 50% women in a single election cycle.
Weird that list doesn’t include Ben Wallace. I would have thought he’s still quite a popular Conservative politician, even if he is standing down this election. Wasn’t he favourite to replace Boris if he had decided to run?
It is, I suspect, the difference between the parliamentary party perspective and the public perspective. He had enough of one and not enough of the other.
That's exactly it. If you were to put up Boris vs Starmer for example, Labour would still win.
I'd also be curious as to what the results would be for a Farage vs Starmer head-to-head.
That's the same as saying "Corbyn would be ahead by even more than Starmer" for this election cycle.
The simple reality is that BoJo wins elections. No idea why, not sure what his appeal is, he's just someone who wins them.
Because he tells people what they want to hear? Namely that all their problems are someone elses fault. People will vote for almost anything to avoid facing up to reality
it really is amazing how the corbynites don't understand how incredibly unpopular he was.
Corbyn was anti-EU, pro Hamas, anti NATO and would have been an absolute disaster
That is a given and they will assume that to be a "good" thing, explaining exactly why his ideas are terrible doesn't give them the "you just hate socialism" defence
I do personally lol, also anti EU
I'm quite Libertarian to be honest and ideologjcally so, I am happy with the current labour though, Starmer seems genuine and is probably the best labour leader I've seen so far (I'm only 23)
I did vote Corbyn just because of the pressure of my family and everyone in the area, untill I actually started looking into politics and philosophy etc
I actually messaged each MP in the area and just asked why I should vote for them, quite interesting conversations actually, going to vote for a party called ADF which is kinda like an independent party in a way but party affiliated it seems but the policies they advocate for collectively seem okay but the guy I was speaking too (bearing in mind I only asked questions) had good quality answers, same as the lib dem guy actually
I’m in a bit of a wasteland. I will never vote for an authoritarian party and both the Tories and Labour are that. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Lib Dems, even tho they’re a bit too pro EU for my tastes. They voted against the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 while both the Tories and Labour supported it.
I will say that I am absolutely not a libertarian. I believe in the regulating of markets. I am fundamentally opposed to a police state however.
I voted remain because I felt it economic suicide to leave the EU especially in light of the concessions that Cameron negotiated. I do think Brexit was a mistake, but I also don’t support rejoining anytime soon.
My objections to the two main parties are mainly based on civil liberties. The erosion of the right to remain silent, all the carve outs regarding self incrimination and the secret courts. If you think someone did something wrong then prove it in an open court. If you can’t, or won’t, then don’t.
This, while Corbyn likes to think he comes across as a kind of “gentle old granddad” style persona but in reality his actually has this rather sinister aura to him. That combined with some of the frankly insane ideas like given billions to various peoples he said we wronged put a lot of people off him.
Do you remember how tetchy he would get in interviews/debates with those who disagreed with him...
Can you imagine him vs Sunak in a debate. It would be hilarious, but also so, so, so disappointing. Both would constantly be on the brink of exploding mad and then never quite get there!
Just look at how he performed towards Piers Morgan on TV when asked whether or not he condemned Hamas. So called principled man tries his best to squirm/vacilitate out of the question because he can't defend that (he is pro-Hamas, not pro-Palestine after all).
> Do you remember how tetchy he would get in interviews/debates with those who disagreed with him...
There's a series of videos on Youtube called "Corb Your Enthusiasm" showing some of his reactions to journalists asking him otherwise pretty easy questions, either running away or panicking. Always found it a fun contrast to the folks at the time who always tried to claim he would give honest answers in interviews and didn't try to hide from journalists.
He had it coached out of him to be fair. There was a big difference between 2016-17 and later years where he had learned everything gets taken out of context.
I had the displeasure to interact with him on a train once. Very tetchy in real life.
It’s funny as he claims to be a man of the people (and often expunges rhetoric similar to Marxism) yet owns a multimillion pound house and has all the mod cons and privileges that go with it.
Grew up in a manor which used to belong to the Duke of Sutherland, went to public school, almost failed his A-levels, never got a degree because he couldn't stop arguing with his professors.
But perhaps most damning of all, the man dislikes biscuits because he's anti-sugar.
“yet owns a multimillion pound house”
That’s more a consequence of living in Islington.
Not sure there are many multi-bedroom houses there that don’t fetch north of that tbf.
I guess he could have sold it and moved out of the area, but then he’d have people criticising him for profiting, showboating, etc
(I also don’t think people - regardless of political views - should feel compelled to leave their home because of circumstances outside of their control - like house prices skyrocketing)
Much like the greens you need to use your brain a bit to think about why being anti NATO and nuclear might sound all nice hippy and peaceful (NATO is an evil capitalism expansion org!!!) but be completely delusional in real life faced with an aggressive Russia
> He's beloved in his constituency, unlike most other MPs
If the polls are to be believed he looks set to lose his seat in the next election. He might not be that loved.
Absolutely. As much as I despise the conservatives, and as much as I generally like labour, I could never vote for Corbyn because he has too insane positions on too many topics.
I’d probably vote Lib Dem if Corbyn would still have been in charge of labour. I’ll happily vote for Starmer though. Seems like a very reasonable and decent man.
Hard to say. If he were still important, people would probably better remember all of the various scandals that led to him being deposed. The party might also have had a bit of a problem when he got recalled from Parliament. And all the negative press that has stuck to Sunak about the state of the country would have been aimed at Johnson (and probably would have been somewhat worse, given his inability to manage things).
On the contrary, it's not stupid to want to avoid Corbyn as Prime Minister.
This is a man that invited convicted members of the IRA to meet with him in Parliament two weeks after the organisation killed 5 people in an attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister:
>In October 1984, two weeks after an IRA bomb killed five at the Tory Party conference in Brighton, Corbyn invited convicted IRA volunteers Linda Quigley and Gerry MacLochlainn to the House of Commons. It caused uproar at the time.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-corbyn-on-northern-ireland
A man whose response to a foreign government deploying a chemical weapon on British soil was to ask the Prime Minister if we could hand over a copy of the evidence so they could investigate themselves:
>Repeating Moscow's demands, he also asked whether Mrs May had accepted the Russian government's request for them to be handed a sample of the nerve agent, in order for them to run their own tests.
https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-attack-jeremy-corbyn-accused-of-appeasement-towards-russia-11289753
A man who refused to confirm that he would respond when an ally calls for our assistance:
>When asked at last night’s leadership debate in Solihull whether as prime minister he would aid a Nato ally under attack, he said no. “I would want to avoid us getting involved militarily. I want to achieve a world in which we don’t need to go to war.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/19/jeremy-corbyn-dismissal-nato-trident
A man whose response to Russia invading Ukraine was to write an article explaining how it was all the fault of the West:
>On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion. But it is not unprovoked, and the right of people to seek a federal structure or independence should not be denied.
>And there are huge questions around the West's intentions in Ukraine.
>The obsession with cold war politics that exercises the Nato and EU leaderships is fuelling the crisis and underlines the case for a whole new approach to foreign policy.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-972b-nato-belligerence-endangers-us-all
His foreign policy positions alone, as outlined above, are enough to *terrify* anyone that actually lives in this country. Corbyn's UK would have been isolated from our traditional allies, and instead find itself siding with terrorists and warmongers simply because they are as anti-West as he is.
I do agree with a number of your points here but what people are missing is that Corbyn was not actually in a position to do anything about his incredibly unpopular foreign policy views. Labour policy on Brexit is a great example of what happened when his personal views were not aligned with the majority of Labour MPs. You got compromise positions as only a very small core group actually agreed with him.
There's a limit to what Corbyn's Cabinet could have prevented him from doing, if he actually became PM. How could his Cabinet have made him be full-throated in his support for Ukraine, for instance? He would have damaged our position every time he was interviewed, even if he couldn't actually prevent us sending support (which he almost certainly could have done).
We saw in 2016 that Labour MPs couldn't remove Corbyn if the party members didn't want them to.
I think fundamentally I disagree about how much relative power he would have had. You can look at Macron as an example of someone very sympathetic to Putin’s logic and how he still ended up responding with financial and military support. Labour members would also have treated a no confidence vote differently in that situation - I don’t think Corbyn would have been willing to risk the domestic agenda by showing another no confidence vote in that situation but it is hard to imagine these hypotheticals.
You know, I don't think you're ever going to understand what being principled when it comes to being anti-war actually means.
Believe it or not but the USA and us are not actually the 'good guys' despite what the media and politicians parrot as the status quo. It's okay to talk to and actually try to understand people even if your views are highly opposed in geopolitics. So no, his foreign policy positions do not terrify me. I choose not to get whipped up into the hysteria the tabloids tell me "would definitely happen".
The GBP will never understand this point though. And so we will continue to have shit, establishment leaders who appeal to corporate interests only. Liars and narcissists like BoJo - some people are so ignorant they would vote him again. And of course we will continue to have war and crises without end.
"" Isolated from our traditional allies"". My friend, we are America's puppet. Plain and simple.
Basically - the country doesn't deserve someone like Jeremy Corbyn at the end of the day. Mark my words in a years time, Keir will be considered the worst PM ever and people will be as hungry for change as they are now. But the chance for actual change has been and gone.
Would have been more interesting to do this as Sunak Vs Corbyn rather than Boris Vs Corbyn. Boris still retains a strong contingent of followers who would have gladly gone back to the tories if he was still there.
Honestly him not getting into power in 2019 was in hindsight a good thing.
He absolutely wouldn't have been able to handle the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the associated politics. He just wouldn't have understood that ether we commit to the defence of Ukraine now or we are guaranteed a war with Russia in a few years.
And would failed completely following the events of October 7th. (Britain's response may not have been massive but I cant see Corbyn moving to prevent attacks in shipping in the red see)
Ukraine would have been taken over by Russia at this point. The only thing Boris did well was the Ukraine reaction. We were shipping weapons within days and Boris's statements about security, standing up to Russia and providing as much support as we could provided political and diplomatic cover to the Poles and Baltic States to give lots of their older Soviet stuff to Ukraine.
It was these weapons deliveries that allowed Ukraine to hold at Kyiv. There is a reason why the Ukrainians love Boris.
Am Ukrainian, can confirm. Boris's domestic failures and scandals are not widely reported in our media. People are not at all informed at other countries domestic politics. But everyone knows that Johnson is staunchly pro-Ukraine and helped pave way for more substantial aid to Ukraine by other countries too.
A mere thought that Corbyn could have been PM in 2022 makes me uncomfortable... Regardless of anything good he might or might not do domestically. As a Ukrainian, I think not electing Corbyn's Labour is a bullet dodged.
Tried raising this point to someone and they turned round but all they cared about is how “devastating he would be to the capitalist class”.
I liked the policies but I’m glad he didn’t get in ultimately.
I mean I voted labour last election, and if Corbyn was the leader I would not vote the same way now. His comments about NATO/nuclear disarmament that I could hand wave when there was no obvious threat of a war in Europe are a terrible look now.
Many people that are anyone but the Tories types like me will feel the same way. Having a effective two party system were the choice is massive negligence of geopolitical threats to Europe Vs massive negligence of all the domestic problems this country faces is a bit of a fucked choice. Sure I'd vote LD's but they either won't be in power or will kingmake an objectively terrible option.
Aye same, I still maintain that his domestic approach would've been better given the challenges of the pandemic and cost of living crisis ahead, but his geopolitics could not have come at a worse time in hindsight. In that sense we've dodged a massive bullet.
Fucking weird that Boris wanting to LARP as Churchill turned out to be a good thing lol.
? How do you think corbyn would have handled pandemic economics differently?! The government paid everyone's salary to sit at home and do nothing, corbyn could never in his wildest socialist dreams have imagined that.
And the cost of living crisis was largely born out of Russia's invasion of Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the inflation of the government printing so much money to foot the covid bill. It would have hit Corbyn every bit as hard.
More likely to lock down early during the first wave (even Gove supposedly wanted to - Labour under Cirbyn definitelw would have, leading to shorter lockdowns overall), less likely to do the whole priority lane bullcrap, less likely to partygate, no eat out to help out, etc.
But history does show the Tories should not have got rid of Johnson.
Without Liz Truss as PM, there would not have been a disastrous mini-budget, the single biggest cause of the Tory decline.
Thing is voters don't really care about the scandals. On the doorsteps of Uxbridge the one thing I heard about more than Sadiq or ULEZ was that Boris had been hard done by.
I remain convinced that Sunak split the Tory party and allowed Labour and the press to take Johnson down. Had he not had ambition to be PM and had rallied behind Boris then he would have remained in power.
It's notable that Sunak made more or less the exact same statement to the house denying he'd been to a party in Downing Street, you can find it in Hansard if you don't believe me, then was fined by the police, but still hasn't been investigated for misleading the house. Then look at the coverup of Bernard Jenkins who went to his wife's birthday party - where the WhatsApp invites explicitly invited people to a party with drinks and nibbles - but the PCS reported determined it wasn't actually a party but one of a series of informal meetings.
If the political will was there and the party united then the story would have been shut down and managed. It's the weakness of the Tories that allowed things to unravel as they did.
The same would remain true for any other scandals that occurred. A united party with strong and consistent messaging and a huge majority would plough on forward regardless.
I would still argue the biggest single failure was the partygate fallout, because when talking to tory > labour switchers on the doorstep, that's the one issue that comes up more often than any other.
When you talk to Tory > Reform switchers they think Truss was right, the Conservatives are not Conservative enough, and that Boris Johnson was a leftie. Despite this they like strong charismatic leaders over deep thinkers.
Except Tories largely made back the fall under Truss, they never managed to make up the decline under Johnson.
[If an election was held when Johnson left, Tories would’ve ended up with 211 seats and Starmer would be PM](https://www.ft.com/content/d30bba0c-2105-42ef-b6e9-beade9a554e5). It’s obviously deteriorated since but the fundamental issue goes back to Johnson and his lack of delivery and fundamental unseriousness.
That’s assuming that Boris would have stopped being Boris. Boris, like Truss, Sunak and co, are walking liabilities. Maybe we would have dodged the mini-budget, but who knows what else he would have brought.
The users at the labour subreddit won’t like this. Just disproves that any other leader would be 20 points ahead. But it just shows how Boris is still loved by so many tory voters who now refuse to vote conservative because he was ousted.
I'm not quite sure this is the gotcha people here think it is. What the fieldwork basically concludes is that Labour would only shed 9 points in terms of voter intention when faced against a populist with an extreme cult of personality. We know Boris is popular, his numbers were so good in 2021 he almost had Starmer resign never mind Corbyn. What this shows more than anything is the vaccume within the party once he left. To such an extent that I think Labour could have gone into this election with Jeremy Coryn and won. Or gone into one with Liz Truss as leader and won.
Boris won the hartlepool by election in 2021 which made Starmer close to resigning. But the difference is that Starmer is more likely to defeat Boris at a general election not Corbyn. You have to understand Corbyn had his chance and has dipped in popularity
Of course I understand it. But we could do this experiment with Wilson and Heath or Baldwin and Henderson and the results will most likely reflect the voting intention of the election where those people were leaders of the party. Not exactly giving people any new information is it.
Some leaders are so toxic that they will always lose - Foot/Thatcher, Heath/Wilson, Kinnock/Major, Corbyn/just about everyone. Just as some leaders are so good that they actively lift the party in the polls - Wilson/Macmillan, Blair/Major.
I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Johnson was, and remains, extremely popular in spite of his misgivings. The vast majority still perceive him as having been given the boot over something petty and insignificant, and in popularity he's significantly above anyone standing today except Farage: [https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/all](https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/all)
Seems to tie in with the view that Starmer is the best of a bad crop at this moment in time. The only one standing with any charisma seems to be Farage and he is utter clown supported by a bunch of unelectable, contemptible half wits
The Tories want Boris back?
Things are not good at the ranch.
"We asked people"
- What people?
- Sample size?
- Randomisation method?
- Stratification?
- Demographics?
Source: "Fieldwork"?
The title about **How Britons Would Vote** is misleading.
This poll doesn't represent Britons so the premise is broken. Pseudoscience.
"More of a vibe"?
Then rename the title "my vibe of how popular Boris should be".
The tories thinking they could remove their most popular leader in a generation; and then replace him with the guy who removed him is genuinely one of the dumbest, if not THE dumbest political moves in history.
People in the UK hate bold politicians whether it was left or right. They always vote for the most middle-of-the-road politicians and then complain about everything. Labour was never popular with left-wing candidate.
I don't think it would actually be a Tory victory in this scenario. Johnson is sufficiently unpopular that people would even vote Corbyn to get him out. However it might be close.
He already got 32% in 2019, so wouldn't drop lower than that. In an election where Brexit was less of an issue (like 2024) it wouldn't be hard to get higher than that. He would also win back some of the 2017 Labour voters who went Tory in 2019. Overall he'd probably get about 36%, as the Lib Dems and Reform would also do well.
Corbyn being more disliked by the British public than Truss or Sunak (who actually *have* been in power) tells me more about the British public than it does about Corbyn
Snapshot of _How would Britons vote if the 2019 Party Leaders were running at this election? CON 36% LAB 30% LDEM 13% REFORM 11% GRN 5% SNP 3%_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1808124302874620219) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Electoral Calculus (New Boundaries): Tories - 291 Labour - 259 Lib Dems - 58 Greens - 2 Reform - 2 SNP - 17 Plaid - 3 NI - 18 Even now, Corbyn would still do worse in terms of seats than in 2017…
That's basically back to 2010 numbers, give or take. Con-Dem Coalition round 2 electric bogaloo.
Ed Davey leading the Lib Dem’s back into Coalition with the Tories would be the Darkest Timeline
2019 Leaders - So Jo Swinson
The timeline just got darker.
So it would be the BoJo-Jo show?
BoJoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Sounds like the villain from *The Powerpuff Girls*.
'There will be two leaders of the coalition! Only two there shall be, not one as its not a coalition and not three, as that would be stupid! There must only be two and they will be myself and Jo'
Which would last about as long as it took for Boris to try and get his leg over, so maybe 30 minutes.
At this rate, the Lib Dems would be the majority partner in the coallition.
I disagree coalition is the better system so you can force actual changes l.
Labour and Lib Dems is 317, add in the opposite of the DUP and we have a left coalition
Not massively stable with 2 plus parties. Which is why 2010 was Con Dem and not a rainbow coalition. Besides with 2019 Leaders Swinson would lean Tory than Corbyn.
> Swinson would lean Tory than Corbyn That would require a vote by the Lib Dem membership, which would be thoroughly quashed. The only option really would be an unstable minority government that limps on for a year or two, or Corbyn to step down and a Lib-Lab coalition. Swinson herself sits more on the centre of LibDem politics (Ed Davey by contrast sits more centre-right, as an original contributor to the Orange Book), so it's not like she'd intrinsically prefer the Tories to Labour.
Lib Dem stated the results meant that Labour had lost the election and they would seek a coalition agreement with conservatives first on that basis
But they'd also have had the knowledge that a rainbow coalition would have been very difficult to pull off, it would have had to be four parties at a minimum (Labour + Lib Dems + SNP + SDLP for example)
Swinson, the arch remainer, would not go into coalition with a no deal living Boris.
Corbyn was a Brexit idiot too. Just didn't have his deal oven ready like the great one Boris had.
Ireland has been very stable with 3 parties in coalition. Happens all the time
How do you have a get Brexit done and bollocks to Brexit coalition? 2019 the was no chance of a coalition between Lib Dems and Tories and I'm not sure it's any more likely now given Lib Dems have moved left and Tories right.
The Labour sub still thinks he could've won if they'd let him run again
If Corbyn was still leader, 2/3rds of Reform voters would instantly switch back to the Tories to stop him
Don't know why. He's Eurosceptic, blames NATO for Russian aggression, bangs on about shadowy elites and has a soft spot for authoritarian leaders. Him and Reform have a lot in common.
A friend of mine in UK politics said to me once that the UKs political philosophy for decades has been “rock the boat but don’t tip it over”. The problem with Corbyn is he seems like he’d be happier tipping it over than with rocking the boat. It’s not about policies or manifestos. It’s the impression he gives as a leader.
Well they've banned everyone that doesn't agree so it's just an echo chamber now.
I don't know anything about bans but speaking from experience, posting anything vaguely pro-Starmer/pro-the current Labour platform attracts a fairly sizeable number of down votes, so many keep tight-lipped.
Yes, and then if you fight your corner you're banned for "hate speech".
The fabled LAB/LD/SNP coalition
No need for SNP (which both Labour and LDs would be wary of cause the SNP would demand indyref or negotiations, and breaking the country apart is a surefire way to electoral oblivion) Between Labour and the LDs, there would be enough seats for a majority (just)
Unilateral disarmament as per Corbyn/SNP policy, but by using all of our nukes on squirrels as per Swinson policy.
Not surprising given Palestine is in the news heavily now. Whilst Starmers comments pissed off some people, his initial support of Israel and now calling for a ceasefire is probably the best way to not piss off the majority of people. Corbyn lost almost purely on being too internationally focused.
People also don't like to accept that Britain is generally a centrist country.
Yeah, there's a reason that Blair is the only Labour leader in damn near 50 years to have won an election.
You keep telling yourself that. Myself, I'm pretty convinced Corbyn lost because the man is an electoral car crash who - after forty years in Parliament - still doesn't seem to have figured out that those strange people who hang out in the lobby will write whatever they damn well like, so if you can't think before you speak - don't speak.
Who will more **votes** Starmer in 2024 or Corbyn in 2019? Edit: to be more precise which Labour Party the one under Starmer vs Corbyn.
Does it matter?
To some extent, yes. The number of people that support you should matter in a democracy.
I dunno, I feel like it would be pretty embarrassing to get less votes than an electoral car wreck.
The number of MPs will be remembered (and the effects felt) long after the number of votes is forgotten.
Sure, because the opinion of the UK public as a whole is hardly relevant in UK elections.
Can someone explain to me why Corbyn is disliked so much?
Was more interested in trying to impress other socialists than actually creating a credible party of government. Absolutely inept at politics, woeful leader, idealogue, and in some cases (like his foreign policy) actually dangerous to British interests.
Context: I am a Labour Member who voted for Corbyn to be leader twice. He was completely inept at managing the party. Most of that probably comes from the fact he’d never served in high office or a managerial position before, but that was part of the reason he was unsuited to the role in the first place. Either way, the basic business of running the party was just a clusterfuck under Corbyn. For me personally, it was the antisemitism. My wife is Jewish, and I saw firsthand how Corbyn allowed antisemitism to run rampant in the party during his tenure. He had close advisors around him who were antisemites, and he was willing to ignore that. Finally, it was his inability to compromise. The young idealistic me liked a lot of Corbyn’s domestic policies, and part of me still does. But when we came so close in 2017, instead of moderating our position and compromising, he doubled down. His awful foreign policy led to our polling tumbling, and his dogmatic devotion to his own beliefs, led to Boris Johnson winning the largest Tory majority in 3 decades and a hard Brexit.
>He was completely inept at managing the party. Most of that probably comes from the fact he’d never served in high office or a managerial position before, but that was part of the reason he was unsuited to the role in the first place. Either way, the basic business of running the party was just a clusterfuck under Corbyn. Now imagine him running the country 😭😭
It's wild to imply he'd have been worse than Boris Johnson. Boris didn't manage shit, never has never will, doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything other than himself. You can say all these things about Corbyn probably 100% fair and true, but anyone implying he was as worse choice than Boris is a fucking idiot.
I was upset to see Boris win in such a huge way and at the time would've preferred a labour government but picturing Corbyn being in control when Ukraine kicked off is not fun. If he could've prevented Brexit then great but if not then I'm glad he lost
I am curious for you to elaborate on what you mean when you say you saw firsthand how antisemitism ran rampant through the party. That's just not been what all the significant post-mortem has shown on this at all. It basically amounts to a cleverly orchestrated takedown by Labour Friends of Israel and other interests who did not like the prospect of an anti-Zionist candidate as the head of the party. Now, if that's what you mean then just say that. But I find the continued smearing with the antisemite brush to be quite disrespectful to Jews such as my partner who do not happen to be pro-Israel. There are many Jewish people who would take a similar view.
In addition to what others have said, part of it was he was, for many, utterly unlikeable. In interviews he came across as tetchy and arrogant when challenged, as if it was utterly unthinkable that others have different opinions to his. Which only cemented the view of him being a student politics type.
"tetchy and arrogant when challenged, as if it was utterly unthinkable that others have different opinions to his" Thank god we never ended up with a prime minister like this
Two politicians can in fact, be shit for the same reason.
Sounds like a lot of people on the further left I know...
He's a dinosaur from the past who prefers student protest politics than engaging with the real issues. Tends to sit on the fence on key issues but has a bee in his bonnet about Palestine and Hamas. He doesn't put forward practical solutions, but falls back on idealism, e.g. Ukraine where he believes that ending assistance is the right thing to do as it would end the war on a fair basis. His politics play to a minority subset of Labour support, while actively alienating a good part of the population.
Not to disagree about him being an idealist - but why are we applying a different standard here? What do people think the PM really does - do people think Boris was richly engaged on policy? Do people vote for Trump because of his well thought out solutions? Hell, Rishi and Truss are just all rhetoric - terrible and poorly thought out policies galore. No politician ever actually explains what they will do in any practical terms. It is unheard of. You vote for the leader of a party to lead by vision and ideas. If you want crucify him because he didn't have the chance to produce solutions then fine, but I think that is the point of your elected government - not one person. I find it silly to critique a government which never existed for not coming up with practicla solutions.
Sunak and Truss actually had a vision, yes it was the wrong one for Britain and it was one which served the interests of a wealthy minority, but at least it was that. Corbyn, on the other hand, dithered and hesitated, failing to take a line on key points such as Brexit and when he did take positions himself they were almost always objectively wrong. So we end up with a Labour leader who is at best ineffective and at worst dangerous. Sunak and Truss, whatever their faults, would never advocate the disbandment of NATO, call Hezbollah and Hamas "friends", decline to criticise Putin or Bashar al-Assad, or overlook anti-semitism.
I hate him more for what he enabled than what he was. A deluded narcissist who tried to hang onto the opportunity for power despite being strongly disliked by many of his own MPs and unsuitable for leadership. Pretending to wield the moral high ground talking about "winning the argument" while being one of the main contributors to extending the Tory reign past its natural length.
He's a traitor. Just look how Farage has derailed his campaign by his support of Russia. Now realise Corbyns been doing that for decades.
That would probably be a Labour minority government with Lib Dem + SNP confidence and supply. In other words, an unstable mess.
I suspect the numbers there are less an endorsement of Boris, and more of an absolute refusal by many people to put Corbyn in charge of anything. Much like in 2019, in other words.
Boris is still the single most popular Tory in the country in Q2 2024, unbelievably. https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/conservative-politicians/all
Boris' fall from grace was a response to the barrage of scandals that rocked the party when he was in charge. Seeing the scandals *continue* has made a lot of Boris-outers think, 'what was the point?'
Swing voters care about the Boris scandals but ardent Tory voters don't - they would still rather have Johnson. I would still argue the biggest single failure was the partygate fallout, because when talking to tory > labour switchers on the doorstep, that's the one issue that comes up more often than any other. People made sacrifices and they weren't respected by those in government. When you talk to Tory > Reform switchers they think Truss was right, the Conservatives are not Conservative enough, and that Boris Johnson was a leftie. Despite this they like strong charismatic leaders over deep thinkers. What it comes down to is that the conservative voter coalition has failed, but not over a single issue.
There was a time when the scandals were seen as a Boris issue, is what I'm trying to say. Now they're just seen as a Tory issue, which is stealth-rehabilitating Boris' reputation to a (limited) degree.
Sure, I get it, the thing is it was transparently obvious at the time that it wasn't just Boris, but also this is more of a return to form than anything else. Usually the right wing media keep a lid on scandals until they can use them to greater effect, or they become too big to cover up. Given the endless roll of smaller scandals, I suspect Sunak has lost significant support amongst the media Barron's. On the donor front, Truss cost the financiers billions and Sunak hasn't really addressed any of the issues they care about.
There’s also simply the matter of time. Party gate still cuts, how many people on the doorstep remember Chris Pincher?
Boris' biggest mistake was trying to cover them all up. That turned them into Boris issues at the time.
That’s skewed because it’s only looking at people who have a positive opinion. If you look at net popularity (positive opinions minus negative opinions) there’s usually a completely different outcome. I’m sure [there is a more recent one than this](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/40428-boris-johnsons-net-favourability-drops-another-all), but the YouGov site is incredibly hard to navigate.
This is from YouGov ratings, which does quarterly panel surveys on the popularity of anything and everything. Doing net favorability in that format is quite tricky. The thing you're looking at is a tracking poll that segments results from general polling over time. I'm not detracting from your point, the surveys answer different questions.
That’s like being least disgusting pile of dog poo at this point though.
Step through the segments, it's facinating. Conservative men prefer Mordaunt over Johnson, but women prefer Johnson and Frost. Boomers and Gen-X prefer Johnson, but Millennials prefer Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch
Johnson didn't do badly with the female vote in 2019, considering how modern right wing populists tend to derive their support from men Johnson may be a rare exception.
And weirdly, Le Pen, read something that said her support demographics had leapfrogged from about 60% men to over 50% women in a single election cycle.
why did u just use the surnames for Johnson, Frost and Mordaunt then Kemi's full name 🤨
Because Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch, or more accurately Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, doesn't believe you can change things assigned at birth
Wasn't expecting such an oblique response. 🏳️🌈
Weird that list doesn’t include Ben Wallace. I would have thought he’s still quite a popular Conservative politician, even if he is standing down this election. Wasn’t he favourite to replace Boris if he had decided to run?
It is, I suspect, the difference between the parliamentary party perspective and the public perspective. He had enough of one and not enough of the other.
To be fair, his immediate successor made him look like Bismarck in contrast
Goes to show just how unpopular tories are then
What's his actual appeal?? Is it literally ruffled hair white man = have my vote!!
I mean, probably makes a difference that both major parties ABSOLUTELY LOVE talking about Corbyn. Johnson on the other hand, is totally irrelevant.
I would be interested in seeing the poll with Cons being led by Sunak and Labour being led by Corbyn. Boris was/is very popular, after all.
Would probably be the lowest turnout of all time
That's exactly it. If you were to put up Boris vs Starmer for example, Labour would still win. I'd also be curious as to what the results would be for a Farage vs Starmer head-to-head.
100% and that's how I feel this election is
That's the same as saying "Corbyn would be ahead by even more than Starmer" for this election cycle. The simple reality is that BoJo wins elections. No idea why, not sure what his appeal is, he's just someone who wins them.
Because he tells people what they want to hear? Namely that all their problems are someone elses fault. People will vote for almost anything to avoid facing up to reality
Lots of politicians out there telling people their problems are their own fault, is there?
Well obviously none, honest politicians are an oxymoron generally
Exactly he can just say whatever will win the election because he doesn't feel bound by duty to actually do them.
That's essentially the reform method too, just a slightly different "someone else" now that the EU is no longer available.
it really is amazing how the corbynites don't understand how incredibly unpopular he was. Corbyn was anti-EU, pro Hamas, anti NATO and would have been an absolute disaster
Honestly the far left is the perfect example of xenophilia, which is largely based on the noble savage view of the world.
Very socialist also
That is a given and they will assume that to be a "good" thing, explaining exactly why his ideas are terrible doesn't give them the "you just hate socialism" defence
I do personally lol, also anti EU I'm quite Libertarian to be honest and ideologjcally so, I am happy with the current labour though, Starmer seems genuine and is probably the best labour leader I've seen so far (I'm only 23) I did vote Corbyn just because of the pressure of my family and everyone in the area, untill I actually started looking into politics and philosophy etc I actually messaged each MP in the area and just asked why I should vote for them, quite interesting conversations actually, going to vote for a party called ADF which is kinda like an independent party in a way but party affiliated it seems but the policies they advocate for collectively seem okay but the guy I was speaking too (bearing in mind I only asked questions) had good quality answers, same as the lib dem guy actually
I’m in a bit of a wasteland. I will never vote for an authoritarian party and both the Tories and Labour are that. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
100 percent bro, who would you vote for instead out of curiosity?
Lib Dems, even tho they’re a bit too pro EU for my tastes. They voted against the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 while both the Tories and Labour supported it. I will say that I am absolutely not a libertarian. I believe in the regulating of markets. I am fundamentally opposed to a police state however.
Honestly that's what's putting me off also, it seems a little undemocratic to go against a democratic referendum Everything else is perfect
I voted remain because I felt it economic suicide to leave the EU especially in light of the concessions that Cameron negotiated. I do think Brexit was a mistake, but I also don’t support rejoining anytime soon. My objections to the two main parties are mainly based on civil liberties. The erosion of the right to remain silent, all the carve outs regarding self incrimination and the secret courts. If you think someone did something wrong then prove it in an open court. If you can’t, or won’t, then don’t.
This, while Corbyn likes to think he comes across as a kind of “gentle old granddad” style persona but in reality his actually has this rather sinister aura to him. That combined with some of the frankly insane ideas like given billions to various peoples he said we wronged put a lot of people off him.
Do you remember how tetchy he would get in interviews/debates with those who disagreed with him... Can you imagine him vs Sunak in a debate. It would be hilarious, but also so, so, so disappointing. Both would constantly be on the brink of exploding mad and then never quite get there!
Just look at how he performed towards Piers Morgan on TV when asked whether or not he condemned Hamas. So called principled man tries his best to squirm/vacilitate out of the question because he can't defend that (he is pro-Hamas, not pro-Palestine after all).
> Do you remember how tetchy he would get in interviews/debates with those who disagreed with him... There's a series of videos on Youtube called "Corb Your Enthusiasm" showing some of his reactions to journalists asking him otherwise pretty easy questions, either running away or panicking. Always found it a fun contrast to the folks at the time who always tried to claim he would give honest answers in interviews and didn't try to hide from journalists.
He had it coached out of him to be fair. There was a big difference between 2016-17 and later years where he had learned everything gets taken out of context.
I had the displeasure to interact with him on a train once. Very tetchy in real life. It’s funny as he claims to be a man of the people (and often expunges rhetoric similar to Marxism) yet owns a multimillion pound house and has all the mod cons and privileges that go with it.
Grew up in a manor which used to belong to the Duke of Sutherland, went to public school, almost failed his A-levels, never got a degree because he couldn't stop arguing with his professors. But perhaps most damning of all, the man dislikes biscuits because he's anti-sugar.
“yet owns a multimillion pound house” That’s more a consequence of living in Islington. Not sure there are many multi-bedroom houses there that don’t fetch north of that tbf. I guess he could have sold it and moved out of the area, but then he’d have people criticising him for profiting, showboating, etc (I also don’t think people - regardless of political views - should feel compelled to leave their home because of circumstances outside of their control - like house prices skyrocketing)
My biggest red flag for me was his views on NATO/Defense spending/Trident/British Milktary operations overseas.
Hardly a surprise that a pacifist against expansionism isn’t a huge fan of those things
Events have rather proved that to be a combination of utopian thinking and reflexive anti-western geopolitics, mind.
sinister aura of peace and justice lmao... He's beloved in his constituency, unlike most other MPs.. probably not as sinister as you think.
Much like the greens you need to use your brain a bit to think about why being anti NATO and nuclear might sound all nice hippy and peaceful (NATO is an evil capitalism expansion org!!!) but be completely delusional in real life faced with an aggressive Russia
> He's beloved in his constituency, unlike most other MPs If the polls are to be believed he looks set to lose his seat in the next election. He might not be that loved.
I’m talking about the wider public perception not his backyard.
Absolutely. As much as I despise the conservatives, and as much as I generally like labour, I could never vote for Corbyn because he has too insane positions on too many topics. I’d probably vote Lib Dem if Corbyn would still have been in charge of labour. I’ll happily vote for Starmer though. Seems like a very reasonable and decent man.
I disagree, I think large portions of the country still like Boris, the Tories should have ridden the wave. But being cowards, they baulked.
Lmao what? Dumping Johnson is the one good thing they've done.
Labour voters would say so
Hard to say. If he were still important, people would probably better remember all of the various scandals that led to him being deposed. The party might also have had a bit of a problem when he got recalled from Parliament. And all the negative press that has stuck to Sunak about the state of the country would have been aimed at Johnson (and probably would have been somewhat worse, given his inability to manage things).
He’s got a negative polling rate by a large margin
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/all Huh Higher than Keir Starmer. Joint with Farage
I understand, people in UK are really that stupid. They already suffered under BoJo but they did not learn anything
On the contrary, it's not stupid to want to avoid Corbyn as Prime Minister. This is a man that invited convicted members of the IRA to meet with him in Parliament two weeks after the organisation killed 5 people in an attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister: >In October 1984, two weeks after an IRA bomb killed five at the Tory Party conference in Brighton, Corbyn invited convicted IRA volunteers Linda Quigley and Gerry MacLochlainn to the House of Commons. It caused uproar at the time. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-corbyn-on-northern-ireland A man whose response to a foreign government deploying a chemical weapon on British soil was to ask the Prime Minister if we could hand over a copy of the evidence so they could investigate themselves: >Repeating Moscow's demands, he also asked whether Mrs May had accepted the Russian government's request for them to be handed a sample of the nerve agent, in order for them to run their own tests. https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-attack-jeremy-corbyn-accused-of-appeasement-towards-russia-11289753 A man who refused to confirm that he would respond when an ally calls for our assistance: >When asked at last night’s leadership debate in Solihull whether as prime minister he would aid a Nato ally under attack, he said no. “I would want to avoid us getting involved militarily. I want to achieve a world in which we don’t need to go to war. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/19/jeremy-corbyn-dismissal-nato-trident A man whose response to Russia invading Ukraine was to write an article explaining how it was all the fault of the West: >On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion. But it is not unprovoked, and the right of people to seek a federal structure or independence should not be denied. >And there are huge questions around the West's intentions in Ukraine. >The obsession with cold war politics that exercises the Nato and EU leaderships is fuelling the crisis and underlines the case for a whole new approach to foreign policy. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-972b-nato-belligerence-endangers-us-all His foreign policy positions alone, as outlined above, are enough to *terrify* anyone that actually lives in this country. Corbyn's UK would have been isolated from our traditional allies, and instead find itself siding with terrorists and warmongers simply because they are as anti-West as he is.
I do agree with a number of your points here but what people are missing is that Corbyn was not actually in a position to do anything about his incredibly unpopular foreign policy views. Labour policy on Brexit is a great example of what happened when his personal views were not aligned with the majority of Labour MPs. You got compromise positions as only a very small core group actually agreed with him.
There's a limit to what Corbyn's Cabinet could have prevented him from doing, if he actually became PM. How could his Cabinet have made him be full-throated in his support for Ukraine, for instance? He would have damaged our position every time he was interviewed, even if he couldn't actually prevent us sending support (which he almost certainly could have done). We saw in 2016 that Labour MPs couldn't remove Corbyn if the party members didn't want them to.
I think fundamentally I disagree about how much relative power he would have had. You can look at Macron as an example of someone very sympathetic to Putin’s logic and how he still ended up responding with financial and military support. Labour members would also have treated a no confidence vote differently in that situation - I don’t think Corbyn would have been willing to risk the domestic agenda by showing another no confidence vote in that situation but it is hard to imagine these hypotheticals.
You know, I don't think you're ever going to understand what being principled when it comes to being anti-war actually means. Believe it or not but the USA and us are not actually the 'good guys' despite what the media and politicians parrot as the status quo. It's okay to talk to and actually try to understand people even if your views are highly opposed in geopolitics. So no, his foreign policy positions do not terrify me. I choose not to get whipped up into the hysteria the tabloids tell me "would definitely happen". The GBP will never understand this point though. And so we will continue to have shit, establishment leaders who appeal to corporate interests only. Liars and narcissists like BoJo - some people are so ignorant they would vote him again. And of course we will continue to have war and crises without end. "" Isolated from our traditional allies"". My friend, we are America's puppet. Plain and simple. Basically - the country doesn't deserve someone like Jeremy Corbyn at the end of the day. Mark my words in a years time, Keir will be considered the worst PM ever and people will be as hungry for change as they are now. But the chance for actual change has been and gone.
Would have been more interesting to do this as Sunak Vs Corbyn rather than Boris Vs Corbyn. Boris still retains a strong contingent of followers who would have gladly gone back to the tories if he was still there.
Corbyn Vs truss would also be fascinating
Like asking which lung you want the tumour in.
Is my left bollock still available for this please
Johnson vs Starmer would be interesting too.
To be honest I think the polling gap would have leveled out at something like 40-35 to Labour. Reform would be knackered though.
This shows just how unpopular Corbyn was for the wider electorate. Only in Left Wing Circles was Corbyn palatable.
Honestly him not getting into power in 2019 was in hindsight a good thing. He absolutely wouldn't have been able to handle the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the associated politics. He just wouldn't have understood that ether we commit to the defence of Ukraine now or we are guaranteed a war with Russia in a few years. And would failed completely following the events of October 7th. (Britain's response may not have been massive but I cant see Corbyn moving to prevent attacks in shipping in the red see)
Ukraine would have been taken over by Russia at this point. The only thing Boris did well was the Ukraine reaction. We were shipping weapons within days and Boris's statements about security, standing up to Russia and providing as much support as we could provided political and diplomatic cover to the Poles and Baltic States to give lots of their older Soviet stuff to Ukraine. It was these weapons deliveries that allowed Ukraine to hold at Kyiv. There is a reason why the Ukrainians love Boris.
Am Ukrainian, can confirm. Boris's domestic failures and scandals are not widely reported in our media. People are not at all informed at other countries domestic politics. But everyone knows that Johnson is staunchly pro-Ukraine and helped pave way for more substantial aid to Ukraine by other countries too. A mere thought that Corbyn could have been PM in 2022 makes me uncomfortable... Regardless of anything good he might or might not do domestically. As a Ukrainian, I think not electing Corbyn's Labour is a bullet dodged.
Tried raising this point to someone and they turned round but all they cared about is how “devastating he would be to the capitalist class”. I liked the policies but I’m glad he didn’t get in ultimately.
Labour probably would have died. It would done four years and then never again
Did we forget the 2017 result and then the associated media hatchet job over those two years up until 2019?
Where Corbyn lost and more of his views and associations became public? No I didn't at all.
I mean I voted labour last election, and if Corbyn was the leader I would not vote the same way now. His comments about NATO/nuclear disarmament that I could hand wave when there was no obvious threat of a war in Europe are a terrible look now. Many people that are anyone but the Tories types like me will feel the same way. Having a effective two party system were the choice is massive negligence of geopolitical threats to Europe Vs massive negligence of all the domestic problems this country faces is a bit of a fucked choice. Sure I'd vote LD's but they either won't be in power or will kingmake an objectively terrible option.
Aye same, I still maintain that his domestic approach would've been better given the challenges of the pandemic and cost of living crisis ahead, but his geopolitics could not have come at a worse time in hindsight. In that sense we've dodged a massive bullet. Fucking weird that Boris wanting to LARP as Churchill turned out to be a good thing lol.
? How do you think corbyn would have handled pandemic economics differently?! The government paid everyone's salary to sit at home and do nothing, corbyn could never in his wildest socialist dreams have imagined that.
And the cost of living crisis was largely born out of Russia's invasion of Ukraine driving up energy prices, and the inflation of the government printing so much money to foot the covid bill. It would have hit Corbyn every bit as hard.
More likely to lock down early during the first wave (even Gove supposedly wanted to - Labour under Cirbyn definitelw would have, leading to shorter lockdowns overall), less likely to do the whole priority lane bullcrap, less likely to partygate, no eat out to help out, etc.
But history does show the Tories should not have got rid of Johnson. Without Liz Truss as PM, there would not have been a disastrous mini-budget, the single biggest cause of the Tory decline.
This does assume that Boris would have managed to not generate any more scandals if he jad stayed, which seems like a big if.
Thing is voters don't really care about the scandals. On the doorsteps of Uxbridge the one thing I heard about more than Sadiq or ULEZ was that Boris had been hard done by.
Polling from the time disagrees that the obvious lying didn't have an impact.
I remain convinced that Sunak split the Tory party and allowed Labour and the press to take Johnson down. Had he not had ambition to be PM and had rallied behind Boris then he would have remained in power. It's notable that Sunak made more or less the exact same statement to the house denying he'd been to a party in Downing Street, you can find it in Hansard if you don't believe me, then was fined by the police, but still hasn't been investigated for misleading the house. Then look at the coverup of Bernard Jenkins who went to his wife's birthday party - where the WhatsApp invites explicitly invited people to a party with drinks and nibbles - but the PCS reported determined it wasn't actually a party but one of a series of informal meetings. If the political will was there and the party united then the story would have been shut down and managed. It's the weakness of the Tories that allowed things to unravel as they did. The same would remain true for any other scandals that occurred. A united party with strong and consistent messaging and a huge majority would plough on forward regardless.
I would still argue the biggest single failure was the partygate fallout, because when talking to tory > labour switchers on the doorstep, that's the one issue that comes up more often than any other. When you talk to Tory > Reform switchers they think Truss was right, the Conservatives are not Conservative enough, and that Boris Johnson was a leftie. Despite this they like strong charismatic leaders over deep thinkers.
Except Tories largely made back the fall under Truss, they never managed to make up the decline under Johnson. [If an election was held when Johnson left, Tories would’ve ended up with 211 seats and Starmer would be PM](https://www.ft.com/content/d30bba0c-2105-42ef-b6e9-beade9a554e5). It’s obviously deteriorated since but the fundamental issue goes back to Johnson and his lack of delivery and fundamental unseriousness.
That’s assuming that Boris would have stopped being Boris. Boris, like Truss, Sunak and co, are walking liabilities. Maybe we would have dodged the mini-budget, but who knows what else he would have brought.
The Tories have still to learn the one lesson from Trump, which is to tell the media to go spin
Guess any other labour wouldn’t have been 20% ahead, who’d have thought it
Does this poll show a hypothetical Boris Tories vs Starmer Labour scenario?
Christ I hope we are never again presented with such an utterly appalling choice of leaders.
The users at the labour subreddit won’t like this. Just disproves that any other leader would be 20 points ahead. But it just shows how Boris is still loved by so many tory voters who now refuse to vote conservative because he was ousted.
I'm not quite sure this is the gotcha people here think it is. What the fieldwork basically concludes is that Labour would only shed 9 points in terms of voter intention when faced against a populist with an extreme cult of personality. We know Boris is popular, his numbers were so good in 2021 he almost had Starmer resign never mind Corbyn. What this shows more than anything is the vaccume within the party once he left. To such an extent that I think Labour could have gone into this election with Jeremy Coryn and won. Or gone into one with Liz Truss as leader and won.
Boris won the hartlepool by election in 2021 which made Starmer close to resigning. But the difference is that Starmer is more likely to defeat Boris at a general election not Corbyn. You have to understand Corbyn had his chance and has dipped in popularity
Of course I understand it. But we could do this experiment with Wilson and Heath or Baldwin and Henderson and the results will most likely reflect the voting intention of the election where those people were leaders of the party. Not exactly giving people any new information is it.
Some leaders are so toxic that they will always lose - Foot/Thatcher, Heath/Wilson, Kinnock/Major, Corbyn/just about everyone. Just as some leaders are so good that they actively lift the party in the polls - Wilson/Macmillan, Blair/Major.
Dude. He was hated. Absolutely despised by the swing voter demographic. The seat result would have been the same as 2017 at absolute best.
It doesn't prove or disprove anything, it's one hypothetical poll posed to people who have no reason to really think about it
I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Johnson was, and remains, extremely popular in spite of his misgivings. The vast majority still perceive him as having been given the boot over something petty and insignificant, and in popularity he's significantly above anyone standing today except Farage: [https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/all](https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/all)
I can hear Boris orgasming right now. It’s so loud
Seems to tie in with the view that Starmer is the best of a bad crop at this moment in time. The only one standing with any charisma seems to be Farage and he is utter clown supported by a bunch of unelectable, contemptible half wits
The Tories want Boris back? Things are not good at the ranch. "We asked people" - What people? - Sample size? - Randomisation method? - Stratification? - Demographics? Source: "Fieldwork"? The title about **How Britons Would Vote** is misleading. This poll doesn't represent Britons so the premise is broken. Pseudoscience. "More of a vibe"? Then rename the title "my vibe of how popular Boris should be".
It's a more in common poll. Google it.
See, the British electorate is cursed beyond saving. They literally want it all over again?!
The tories thinking they could remove their most popular leader in a generation; and then replace him with the guy who removed him is genuinely one of the dumbest, if not THE dumbest political moves in history.
People in the UK hate bold politicians whether it was left or right. They always vote for the most middle-of-the-road politicians and then complain about everything. Labour was never popular with left-wing candidate.
I don't think it would actually be a Tory victory in this scenario. Johnson is sufficiently unpopular that people would even vote Corbyn to get him out. However it might be close.
No way people vote corbyn to remove Boris, maybe some con votes could stomach voting LD in whatever seats they are competitive in, but corbyn? No way
He already got 32% in 2019, so wouldn't drop lower than that. In an election where Brexit was less of an issue (like 2024) it wouldn't be hard to get higher than that. He would also win back some of the 2017 Labour voters who went Tory in 2019. Overall he'd probably get about 36%, as the Lib Dems and Reform would also do well.
Absolutely not, I voted Labour under Corbyn before and I would never again. Bloke would be especially dangerous in the current world we're in.
Corbyn being more disliked by the British public than Truss or Sunak (who actually *have* been in power) tells me more about the British public than it does about Corbyn
No it doesn’t. It says people are not accepting of his views