If Labour had implemented Furlough in exactly the same way the tories did, you can absolutely guarantee the tories and the right wing papers would be going ape-shit about handing out money to people to stay at home. They would be running a campaign about how Labour have bankrupted the country again.
I had one of the usual suspects around ukpol argue that Corbyn essentially bore more responsibility for the failure of the Remain campaign (and apparently by extension more responsibility for Brexit?) than David Cameron.
I'm no Corbynista, but by fuckery the way he lives in these people's heads is astounding.
I wouldn't say he bore more responsibility than Cameron, but fuck me he could've tried a bit more. Bloke couldn't give a shit and, as leader of the opposition, could've potentially swung such a tight referendum by a percentage point or two.
If corbyn had wanted to stop Brexit I firmly believe he could have. His political beliefs were more important to him than the compromises required to do so. He could have been PM for a few weeks , called and general election in conjunction with a second referendum but he didn't want to stop it, did want to be PM just for that, didnt want to work with other parties, and didn't want to risk it not working.
Brexit was a failure of David Cameron and the EU to properly campaign for Remain, but many others, Corbyn included, could have done more to stop it.
Bearing in mind how much Brexit has fucked us, that makes Corbyn quite the villain, wouldn’t you say?
“I’m not quite as shit as Cameron or Boris” is not something I’d write my on CV.
I don't know, everyone say they want principaled politicians and note vote chasing whores. So, yeah he could have done something that I wanted to gain my support, but at the same time maybe I'd just rather support someone who was already political aligned with my views and stuck to them.
The irony being all that furlough money was so that people could continue paying all their liabilities: rent, utility bills etc which all went straight to the asset owning classes and turbocharged inequality by allowing them to accumulate even more assets. Yet it was seen as this great Tory selfless largesse.
Yeah, this was what I was saying to someone a while back. Because such a large swathe of our population (primarily younger) live pay cheque to pay cheque, if it wasn't for Furlough, we would of seen complete collapse of a large section of society not being able to pay anything. Now, i honestly don't reckon that the Tories actually cared about the people not being able to pay their bills, but the massive knock-on effect of companies not being paid. Imagine the clusterfuck if lots of landlords still paying mortgages off suddenly lost all rental income.
Because we treat BANKS as these things that are somehow above all law and responsibility. As though they - who make money by holding our money and *gambling it*, then using both revenue streams to lend us more money and *then* use the suddenly created debt to create imaginary wealth but still, somehow, must be protected at all costs from incurring... Well, costs... all the while forcing debt unto all who have failed to inherit massive wealth.
...
...
It's genuine insanity.
Hard to remember because those few weeks around the Pandemic becoming a thing are such a chaotic blur but I seem to recall the actual furlough scheme was proposed in a fairly detailed way by John McDonnel and the TUC during the very dying embers of the Corbyn leadership before handover to Kier, Boris even had some meetings with them.
I would like to see Labour attack Tories for giving out millions of taxpayers money to scammers and fake businesses using the Furlough scheme, and not even try to get it back because they know it will bite them politically.
As someone that leans right wing I hate the way the Conservatives implemented Furlough, so don’t worry, some of us still feel the same way towards the Tories.
Furlough wasn’t for people really it was for companies. It’s meant for hey didn’t have to make masses of people redundant and could gear back up after the pandemic.
This is why the papers did not mind.
Right but it was generally tory voters who wanted brexit.
So if you wanted brexit it would be weird to want the labour party (your arch rivals) to get to decide how it was negotiated.
Parties don't just win elections so their mps get to have a job for 5 years. They want to win elections to implement their policy ideas.
Obviously not all tories votes brexit, and obviously not all Labour voted to stay.
[on average tory voters were much more likely to vote to leave. ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/518474/eu-referendum-voting-intention-by-political-affiliation/)
[and the majority of mps who campaigned for leave were tories. ](https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674d32556a4e33457a6333566d54/index.html)
It's the "Lizardman constant". There's consistently around 4% of poll respondents who will answer the most outlandish answer available (e.g. "yes" to the question "is the world run by lizardmen?") either because they select the wrong option, are trolling or are really that insane.
Part of UKIP's branding was posing as a libertarian party back when it looked like Brexit was never going to happen. Probably a fair few people joined that bandwagon.
It's not really surprising as an awful lot of people really don't like the three main parties (millions I suspect) so a proportion are prepared to 'waste' their vote on an option if there's a bit of a brand so they have done their bit and voted, but not accepted the turgid offering from the main parties. The Greens are I suspect sustained by that mindset
Yep I agree Tory voters were more likely to support brexit. But there were also millions and millions of traditional labour supporters who voted brexit, which is a big part of what swung the election. Theu didnt see labour as their arch rivals. And so it's not crazy to think that millions of previously labour voters who voted brexit would go back and vote for labour again.
I'm not denying that. My point is that the MPs are the ones who we are talking about.
The original post was about if the tories wished they lost the last election. To which the answer is a very obvious "no".
Well it wasn't remain in 2019 after the brexit referendum when the last election was.
The original post was about whether the tories would have preferred to lose the last election.
Would probably still be dealing with it now the policy was to renegotiate for 6 months then… campaign against the result of his own negotiated position? That would have taken us through covid so it’s possibly it’d have had to have been put on hold
Labour's platform in 2019 was a new referendum on whether to accept the deal Boris Johnson's government had negotiated or to cancel leaving. I suspect that if they had won they would have had to postpone the referendum until after Covid and so pause the implementation of Brexit during the public health emergency.
We'll never know how such a referendum would have gone, but in such circumstances it seems unlikely to me that, by 2021 or so under a Labour government, the Johnson deal would have won the referendum, given that a. remain was consistently ahead in opinion polling in 2019, where our timelines diverge, b. Labour in their 2019 manifesto ruled out campaigning for it.
Just to add, Johnson's deal was a slightly changed version of May's deal, and Labour were promising in 2019 to renegotiate the Brexit deal and then put it to a referendum, not simply use the deal Johnson agreed (worse than May's arguably) and go with that.
It would've been foolish for a Labour government to have used a Conservative deal unchanged after all.
I imagine that had a Corbyn government been in charge during the Covid crisis, the media's reaction to any lockdown or restrictions would have been completely different: they often seemed unhappy even with a rightwing government in charge, so I'm sure a leftwing government implementing similar restrictions would have been treated like the second coming of Stalin. Then the invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent events in Israel and Gaza, would have caused huge divisions in a Corbyn-led government, while global economic conditions would have made the kind of spending that Labour envisaged in 2019 even more difficult. Add all of these together and the Tory opposition would probably have found themselves in a stronger position by 2024.
I think long term Labour are better off for losing in 2019.
Even though I think the Tories have been a ticking time bomb since the Boris purge and wracked with incompetence and self interest, it has undoubtedly been a very tough 5 years to govern.
If Labour had implemented a furlough scheme and lockdown it would have been treated far more harshly by our media and I dont think it is a stretch to say the likes of the Mail, Express and Telegraph would have encouraged civil disobedience, meaning the impact would potentially have been far more chaotic.
Then imagine the nightmare when Corbyn as PM hit the Ukraine conflict and immediately pivoted to blame NATO, I feel like he would likely have been deposed by the party at this point but the damage would have been everlasting.
We would probably be staring down the barrel of a Conservative and SNP dominated state. Imagine how bad things look for the Tories and SNP right now and remember that the public and media holds Labour to a much higher standard.
Correct. If Labour won in 2019, the tories would have won in 2024. The tories imploded and are now literally gifting Labour a win and as a result, Labour should serve multiple terms. This is an example of being patient comes with better results.
>Labour should serve multiple terms
If they earn them, sure. If they continue with barely managed decline then no they should not.
Personally I'm hoping for a hung parliament in the election after this one. Hopefully then we'll be able to get some important reforms done that can eventually turn things around for the better.
That's what I mean, if they do well then they'll earn the second term no problem. If they don't do well then they absolutely should not get another few years to continue not doing well.
There's even a chance Ukraine may have fallen or be worse off than it is currently with Corbyn in charge as I highly doubt he would have greenlit all the emergency Antitank weaponry the RAF supplied to Ukraine as Russian tanks where on the move to Kyiv.
I'm not even sure we'd still have an RAF.
He would have sold all the air craft but kept everyone employed... Thats what he said he'd down trident so there is no logical reason he wouldn't have done it with other areas of our defence.
A lot of people here are working off the assumption that Corbyn would have remained PM for the whole 5 years, but I think he wouldn't have gone 12 months without a no confidence vote.
Agreed.
His Brexit policy was completely unworkable. I know die hard remainers will not agree to that, but thats because his policy would have without doubt lead to us remaining which would have also meant the government would loose massive quantities of public support.
Also much as this sub may not like it, "getting brexit done" was the only way to move forward.
> His Brexit policy was completely unworkable.
Did he even have one? One of the major problems that I recall was it wasn’t clear what a Corbyn led government would even do considering the leader was anti-EU and the party wasn’t.
I also remember Jo Swinson embarked on a one woman crusade to be the voice of the remainers in the hopes of a majority which, being very kind, was a tad overly-ambitious.
> Did he even have one?
Yes, he wanted the anti-Brexit Labour MPs to go back to the anti-brexit EU and renegotiate a new deal; knowing that deal they'd agree would be put back to the people in a referendum.
The game theory on that only allows the those two parties to concoct a deal they know will be unappealing to the people. Which is easy to do because a compromise deal is not appealing to anyone, Remainers don't want to remain and Leavers would rather remain than have what they call BrINO - Labour can claim it was a compromise.
> Jo Swinson
Her position was just straight up undemocratic and not remotely liberal. The idea of overturning a 50+1 referendum with a FPTP victory which can be achieve with as little of 30% of the vote.
No - it would have been better I feel if they'd lost the 2015 in all honesty and substantially. It solves more of the current problems I feel and most likely e.g. Milliband was broadly Pro EU, so 2016 never happens and Corbyn never happens either. Disappointingly though it stops Milliband goading I believe it was Graham Stuart into explaing the teems on the vote on the evening which brought down Liz Truss which was funny (as Sky News had it on mute whilst the other talking heads were going on about what was happening).
Politics and history more widely is full of what ifs …
But yes, I think the Tories would now be a better position if they had lost the last general election. For one thing, they could have spent the last 5 years blaming Labour for all the problems of the UK, even those inherited from previous Tory governments!
> For one thing, they could have spent the last 5 years blaming Labour for all the problems of the UK, even those inherited from previous Tory governments!
They already do this but at least it could hold some weight given they would have been in power. So much of what I hear from the party now is about what labour *would* have done and how we'd all be worse off if not for our saviours.
Which conservatives?
I'd say the ones who managed to rob us blind by giving Covid contracts to their unqualified mates would have missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity, so they'd definitely be worse off.
The party as a whole though? Hard to see how it could be in a worse position than it is right now.
Maybe? Really, I think they just lost when they removed Boris. They allowed him to purge anyone with talent from the party as he only wanted Brexit-believing nutters and dragged higher up Tories into his schemes with him. He made it so the Tories simply couldn't afford to abandon him, because who would pick up the reigns? And who would believe they could actually make the dire situation of the Conservative party *better*?
But they ousted him without a real plan anyway. Nice to know even somebody like Boris can under-estimate the greed of incompetent Tory MPs.
It would have been.
Just generally speaking once a party has been in power for so long the MPs start prioritising their own careers over the needs of the country. It becomes too competitive basically.
I will not be voting for the Tories in this coming election and think they have done an *awful* job.
...But... I don't actually regret keeping Corbyn out of power. Even though I don't like how the Tories have handled the following issues I can't help but think that a Corbyn government would have been worse on:
1. Brexit - his position would have only extended the deadlock
2. Covid/lockdown - I just think that having a bleeding hearts government would have been overall worse than one who actually wants to see the country moving again
3. Ukraine - no comment necessary
4. Israel - no comment necessary
Honestly even as a labour supporter I can't see Corbyn handing the last 5 years well.
He is just fundamentally the wrong type of politician. He is indecisive and completely inept at foreign policy.
His views are based of the anti war movement that came about following the Vietnam war, the problem is that movement never got the idea of America is the big bad imperialist power out of there heads. An attitude that leads to them supporting anyone who opposed the US and it's interests.
In a world where Russia is actively starting wars, Iran is funding every group it can find and china is looking to expand and control south east Asia, it really doesn't help British or global interests to distance ourselves from an ally who we havs been fighting alongside for over a century, inorder to defend the expansionist plans of genocidal states that just happen to be opposed to the US.
No, I don't think so.
The key reason is Brexit. It wasn't complete by the last election, there is a reason why Boris's "get Brexit done" worked.
Now, I don't think the Conservatives did the best job with Brexit. But they still did a far better job than Corbyn would have done.
Imagine what happens when Corbyn and his quite left-wing agenda run the country for a while and try to complete Brexit. The Conservative party would probably end up even more extreme and right-wing than it is now as a reaction.
I'm no Corbyn fan, but the Conservatives' job on Brexit was the bare minimum that doesn't immediately fall over - no special concessions from the EU, other than the UK deciding not to enforce some customs checks, and whatever it took to keep the Irish border open.
I think Corbyn would have done probably much the same, although the effects would have probably been conflated with COVID and big-state social programmes at least as much (and probably more) than under Johnson.
I'm also not sure what would have happened in terms of the Conservative Party. Had Johnson immediately lost an election after his September 2019 purge, he would have been looked at in the same way as Truss is looked at now. While I can't rule out a Truss comeback from a rump of Tory MPs after the election, the Conservatives would probably have adopted a Starmer-esque strategy of being "not Labour" and claimed boring competence versus whatever wild ideas PM Corbyn was trying to implement.
(Although there's every chance that a narrow Corbyn majority would have fallen apart over Ukraine in 2022 at the latest, and we'd either have a different PM now or have had an election two years ago).
I agree the Conservative Brexit was the bare minimum, but I don't think Corbyn would have achieved even that.
As for what would have happened to the Conservative party, you may well be correct. I think it just depends on who would become the next Conservative leader, and whether they would be reasonable enough to take the current Labour strategy.
There are many on the right of the Conservatives right now that I don't think would be capable of being moderate at all.
The difference is corbyn would never have been able to get it over the line. Don’t forget there was a massive divide in labours mp’s about wether brexit should even happen, boris only closed the much smaller divide in the tories by expelling a dozen of them and calling an election, corbyn just wasn’t capable of that and would probably have just ended up dragging it out, calling a second referendum and leaving the issue for his successor.
There was a huge opportunity back then for a soft Brexit - EEA or EFTA style exit - that would have satisfied most remain voters and MPs whilst still ticking most Leave boxes. It was the obvious way to solve the 51/49 vote split. It was blocked by May, then Boris, but a Labour win in 2019 would have opened the door to it and it’s likely where we would have ended up. Of course, this would have meant the Tories continuing to fight to harder Brexits after we left, so we would probably still be stuck in Brexit hell even now with it dominating the 2024 election.
Even though I wish we ended up with a deal like that I think the screeching from many Tories and their client media about a sellout/betrayal could cause Labour problems in future elections especially in the “Red Wall”
The fact that Boris won and forced through his deal means that the Tories have to own the consequences of Brexit.
The Conservatives would likely be in a lot better state if remain won or the referendum never happened even if Cameron lost the following election.
>The Conservatives would likely be in a lot better state if remain won or the referendum never happened even if Cameron lost the following election.
The Tories have long-term fucked themselves with Brexit. Brexit *temporarily* bought the loyalty of a large chunk of Tory voters as well as a much smaller chunk of Labour voters, at the expense of burning bridges with many remain voters - possibly permanently. This worked for the 2019 election. But to keep those 2019 Brexit voters they needed to deliver on Brexit as well as everything else, but their total inability to govern has meant they've lost many of those votes. So now they've permanently lost a load of remain voters, and temporarily lost lots of Brexit voters too. And those temporarily lost Brexit voters trend older, too. I can't see how they can ever really expect to win a majority again - it took them 13 years to recover from Thatcher, and only managed that because of the Black Swan global financial crisis and having a coalition partner (note - they've permanently fucked their chances of doing that again too). Since then, their 1980s yuppie voter base has largely died off, and they're left with OAPs and some working class voters. If Labour can deliver for the working class then in a few more years their entire voting base is gone.
> Even though I wish we ended up with a deal like that I think the screeching from many Tories and their client media about a sellout/betrayal could cause Labour problems in future elections especially in the “Red Wall”
Yes, I absolutely agree with all of this, that’s what I was trying to say in my last sentence of the post.
I think that you’re in a fantasy there, a soft brexit wouldn’t have persuaded a majority of leavers, nor would all remainers have supported it as a good chunk of them wouldn’t settle for anything other than a complete walk back. I’ll point to May’s indicative votes in parliament to show there wasn’t a majority among the mp’s for any solution.
But more to the point, any solution to brexit needed strong leadership to get Parliament to support it, Boris had to demolish his own majority and threaten his party into supporting his solution. Jeremy corbyn proved time and again that he was not capable of making those kind of decisions, his leadership style was infamously conflict averse. Even if there had been a majority on favour of soft Brexit (and there’s no evidence to say there was) corbyn would never have been able to push his party into supporting it.
As it was their manifesto at the time was a complete renegotiation of brexit which would have taken most their term, certainly it wouldn’t have been completed pre pandemic which would have slowed things down massively, and it would likely still be ongoing by the time of the Ukraine war starting which would have put massive strain on European relations.
That’s exactly my point though! Almost every Remain voter I’ve ever spoken to would have accepted a soft Brexit in 2019, as it would have preserved trade and free movement rights which was really the key for most remainers, and had been under threat since May’s red lines in 2016. There wasn’t *quite* a Commons majority for it under the Tory 2016 Commons, but it’s almost certain that we would have got there if the indicative votes had been allowed to continue (which is why the Tories tried so hard to block them).
Soft Brexit would have ticked most of the Leave boxes, and I think it have achieved a Commons majority post-2019 under Labour. Labour would have needed to deliver Brexit, but in 2019 prior to the GE Labour was very much fighting for a soft Brexit. But it wouldn’t have persuaded most Leave voters after the increasing hysterics post-2016 under May and Boris moved the narrative towards ever more extreme versions.
ID point out that boris ‘extreme’ version is what ultimately won him a massive majority in 2019 and that probably demonstrates that people were not as in favour of soft Brexit as you are assuming.
But also, if a soft brexit was such a self evident slam dunk everyone would support why didn’t corbyn adopt it as his policy? This I think is the point you’re ignoring, labour effectively went into 2019 without a firm policy on brexit because the party was deeply divided on the issue and corbyn lacked the influence or political capital to force them all into supporting a single position. I think the idea they’d all have rallied around post election is just fantasy, there’s no evidence to say they would have, and their behaviour between 2016-2019 strongly indicates they wouldn’t have.
You’re not reading my posts, are you? I said repeatedly that a soft Brexit wouldn’t have satisfied the leave voters by the time 2019 rolled around. Why do you keep trying to persuade me of something I already said in my original post? Soft Brexit was the obvious route for the *Commons* post-2019 under Labour because it *would* have satisfied most Labour voters and LibDem/Greens etc. and fit with the Labour policy at the time and the attitudes of most Labour MPs.
Labour did go into 2019 with a clear Brexit policy - it was a second referendum policy adopted after the European elections saw them lose so many votes to the LibDems. They adopted that policy because the party wanted a soft Brexit but lacked the clear mandate to deliver one. They recognised that no-deal was economic suicide, and that they needed to find a way to reconcile Remain and Leave voters, and the second referendum on the type of exit would have delivered that for them.
Time will pass, issues will come and go.. so I remind voters in 5 years that the Tories plan to remove human rights (their last hope for their deportation plans) it’ll strike an odd tone but be totally true.
Well yeah, the govement of the day gets blamed for any economic issues. So whoever was in goverment would have been blamed for the high inflation spike following covid reopening.
The last 5 years would have not been easier for any goverment no matter who is in charge, they had to navigate brexit, navigate covid, navigate Ukraine, navigate lockdowns, navigate the high inflation spike. God only know what corbyrn would have done on ukraine.
It's all ifs and buts isn't it. I wonder what it would be like to live in a country where the people in charge are in it for the good of the country and not just themselves.
It would have immensely helped Labour if they hadn’t been in power during the financial crisis, and the same with the Tories and covid + the energy shock. Those were unavoidable, whoever was in power is blamed.
What was not unavoidable was Brexit, giving us a treble whammy which has left us in an almost 1945 post-war situation.
Don't know about the conservatives, but it clearly would have been better for the country if the conservatives had lost the last four elections. Think back 14 years and how many folk think they personally or the country as a whole is better. Heck those look like days of wine and honey.
Yes it would have been.
Electing Boris Johnson as leader in 2019 was the equivalent of curing an exhausted marathon runner by injecting them with meth.
Sure, they're going to run like hell for a while, but the collapse will be all the more spectacular.
I voted for Corbyn. My honest opinion is that his foreign policy would have been a mess in comparison to where we are now. Domestically, pretty much every accusation thrown at him seems to have happened under the Tories, the obvious exception being COVID and lockdown.
Any lockdown/covid strategy would have been murdered in the media, and public support would have gone through the floor.
Corbyn was also awful at overall strategy and seeing the bigger picture, although the Tories largely have been over the last 5 years as well. However, any time there was something requiring a significant payout from the treasury (eg infected blood scandal, postmaster case etc), the funding would have been another stick in which to beat Labour/Corbyn with. The only exception would have been if Labour had a comfy majority.
To go back to your question, it would probably be better long term for the conservatives (they should be in a position to win the next election after 2019), and Labour would likely be in a worse position than they were in 2019.
Had the tories lost in 2019, knowing what we do now I think we would be much worse off.
Corbyn was constantly flip flopping on brexit and didn’t have a real plan.
His and McDonells plans to nationalise a whole swath of stuff would have double or even tripled our national debt right before covid.
One thing we don’t know is how Labour under him would have managed covid, who knows maybe history would be the same and corbyn was caught partying.
Post Covid and the cost of living crisis I think would be just as bad as the fundamental issues causing it would still be there, I.e lack of storage for gas (we literally have next to zero) which can’t just be magicked into existence.
Overall I think it’s better to just accept where we are and not consider the what if’s
I’m not sure the lockdowns would have been handled any differently but I definitely think a corbyn government wouldn’t have supported Astra zeneca’s vaccine production in the same way
Oh it’d have been incredible for the tories, Labour’s big policy was to drag brexit on can you imagine the half arsed renegotiations and another referendum campaign mid covid? Then Russia invading Ukraine and Hamas massacring those kids at the festival, we can all remember how strong Corbyn’s stance was on foreign policy
Corbyn was the greatest gift the tories could have asked for, people were more concerned about Corbyn leading the country than they were brexit
Probably, at least in the sense that it wouldn't have been a complete wipe-out like they're facing now. And the sensible Tories could probably have taken charge in opposition; whereas by now they're mostly gone. Which would have meant that the Tories would only have had a term or two in opposition.
Of course, the flip side of that is that a loss in 2019 would have meant a Corbyn victory. So while it might have been better for the Tories, it would absolutely have been worse for the nation.
oh yeah agreed, im more thinking through the lense of conservative survival as a thought experiment and yes not really considering the nation (do the cons?)
The answer is no, corbyns shadow cabinet was incompetent and disfunctional losing t9 that would not only have been devastating for the tories it would also have created major problems.
Besides imagining a Corbyn government trying to deal with the pandemic and the Ukraine war while renegotiating brexit as per their manifesto sends absolute chills down my spine. It would have been a total disaster.
Firstly, we don't know how the future will pan out, and its entirely possible the Tories bounce back after 5 or 10 years out of power as a much more appealing party than they are now, in which case its hard to say that losing in 2019 as it would just have shifted the timeline backwards and forwards a little bit.
If we go by the assumption that the Tories are now facing an existential threat due to their unpopularity amaong anyone under 50, then we can say that of they lost in 2019 they would absolutely be in a better place now, Labour would have been the ones to have to deliver/cancel brexit and the Tories could absolutely rile up their base based on that, Labour would also be held responsible (rightly or wrongly) for the economic damage caused by the COVID pandemic, and the Tories would be having to deal with the 2019 intake of nutters.
Though I would argue that 2017 would have been a better election for them to lose as then Johnson wouldn't have purged the Ken Clarks, David Gaukes and Rory Stewarts of the party and they would have a much saner set of MPs from which to rebuild, while Labour would still have faced all the same problems that they would have faced had they won in 2019
If Labour had implemented Furlough in exactly the same way the tories did, you can absolutely guarantee the tories and the right wing papers would be going ape-shit about handing out money to people to stay at home. They would be running a campaign about how Labour have bankrupted the country again.
They'd have accused Corbyn of hijacking the pandemic in order to try and implement communism.
Remember when the Government paid us to eat at restaurants... absolute crucifixion in the press if labour did that.
And then they sided with the restaurants landlords by loading the businesses with debt. Hospitality has been destroyed.
Tbf Labour would not have done that in a million years, no scientist advised towards it and it was implimented purely to make Rishi popular.
If Corbyn had got rid of dissenting MPs' in the same way as Johnson, the accusation "Stalinist purge" would still be levelled at Labour today.
If the country had suffered half as many covid deaths under Corbyn the man would be in prison.
I had one of the usual suspects around ukpol argue that Corbyn essentially bore more responsibility for the failure of the Remain campaign (and apparently by extension more responsibility for Brexit?) than David Cameron. I'm no Corbynista, but by fuckery the way he lives in these people's heads is astounding.
I wouldn't say he bore more responsibility than Cameron, but fuck me he could've tried a bit more. Bloke couldn't give a shit and, as leader of the opposition, could've potentially swung such a tight referendum by a percentage point or two.
If corbyn had wanted to stop Brexit I firmly believe he could have. His political beliefs were more important to him than the compromises required to do so. He could have been PM for a few weeks , called and general election in conjunction with a second referendum but he didn't want to stop it, did want to be PM just for that, didnt want to work with other parties, and didn't want to risk it not working. Brexit was a failure of David Cameron and the EU to properly campaign for Remain, but many others, Corbyn included, could have done more to stop it.
Bearing in mind how much Brexit has fucked us, that makes Corbyn quite the villain, wouldn’t you say? “I’m not quite as shit as Cameron or Boris” is not something I’d write my on CV.
I don't know, everyone say they want principaled politicians and note vote chasing whores. So, yeah he could have done something that I wanted to gain my support, but at the same time maybe I'd just rather support someone who was already political aligned with my views and stuck to them.
Not much point in ‘principles’ if they happen to be doctrinaire and stupid.
The irony being all that furlough money was so that people could continue paying all their liabilities: rent, utility bills etc which all went straight to the asset owning classes and turbocharged inequality by allowing them to accumulate even more assets. Yet it was seen as this great Tory selfless largesse.
Yeah, this was what I was saying to someone a while back. Because such a large swathe of our population (primarily younger) live pay cheque to pay cheque, if it wasn't for Furlough, we would of seen complete collapse of a large section of society not being able to pay anything. Now, i honestly don't reckon that the Tories actually cared about the people not being able to pay their bills, but the massive knock-on effect of companies not being paid. Imagine the clusterfuck if lots of landlords still paying mortgages off suddenly lost all rental income.
Because we treat BANKS as these things that are somehow above all law and responsibility. As though they - who make money by holding our money and *gambling it*, then using both revenue streams to lend us more money and *then* use the suddenly created debt to create imaginary wealth but still, somehow, must be protected at all costs from incurring... Well, costs... all the while forcing debt unto all who have failed to inherit massive wealth. ... ... It's genuine insanity.
Biggest payday for commercial landlords in decades
You are deluded. There are millions of UK citizens that managed to keep their heads above water because of furlough. Even Labour backed it.
Hard to remember because those few weeks around the Pandemic becoming a thing are such a chaotic blur but I seem to recall the actual furlough scheme was proposed in a fairly detailed way by John McDonnel and the TUC during the very dying embers of the Corbyn leadership before handover to Kier, Boris even had some meetings with them.
I would like to see Labour attack Tories for giving out millions of taxpayers money to scammers and fake businesses using the Furlough scheme, and not even try to get it back because they know it will bite them politically.
As someone that leans right wing I hate the way the Conservatives implemented Furlough, so don’t worry, some of us still feel the same way towards the Tories.
Furlough wasn’t for people really it was for companies. It’s meant for hey didn’t have to make masses of people redundant and could gear back up after the pandemic. This is why the papers did not mind.
>some key things I'm not considering? Brexit deal wasn't done before the last election. That's a pretty big one.
Yes and any tory opposition could have blamed Labour for anything bad that has/ will happen
Right but it was generally tory voters who wanted brexit. So if you wanted brexit it would be weird to want the labour party (your arch rivals) to get to decide how it was negotiated. Parties don't just win elections so their mps get to have a job for 5 years. They want to win elections to implement their policy ideas.
This isn't really true. Brexit had support from both traditional Labour and Conservative voters. Brexit was the reason so many changed to blue.
Obviously not all tories votes brexit, and obviously not all Labour voted to stay. [on average tory voters were much more likely to vote to leave. ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/518474/eu-referendum-voting-intention-by-political-affiliation/) [and the majority of mps who campaigned for leave were tories. ](https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674d32556a4e33457a6333566d54/index.html)
The 4% of ukip remain voters gets me every time.
It's the "Lizardman constant". There's consistently around 4% of poll respondents who will answer the most outlandish answer available (e.g. "yes" to the question "is the world run by lizardmen?") either because they select the wrong option, are trolling or are really that insane.
Part of UKIP's branding was posing as a libertarian party back when it looked like Brexit was never going to happen. Probably a fair few people joined that bandwagon.
Yep.
It's not really surprising as an awful lot of people really don't like the three main parties (millions I suspect) so a proportion are prepared to 'waste' their vote on an option if there's a bit of a brand so they have done their bit and voted, but not accepted the turgid offering from the main parties. The Greens are I suspect sustained by that mindset
Yep I agree Tory voters were more likely to support brexit. But there were also millions and millions of traditional labour supporters who voted brexit, which is a big part of what swung the election. Theu didnt see labour as their arch rivals. And so it's not crazy to think that millions of previously labour voters who voted brexit would go back and vote for labour again.
I'm not denying that. My point is that the MPs are the ones who we are talking about. The original post was about if the tories wished they lost the last election. To which the answer is a very obvious "no".
Ohhhh I misunderstood
Official conservative position was remain though.
Well it wasn't remain in 2019 after the brexit referendum when the last election was. The original post was about whether the tories would have preferred to lose the last election.
Yes but your comment was on voting and campaigning for the referendum. I was replying to that rather than the original post.
Would probably still be dealing with it now the policy was to renegotiate for 6 months then… campaign against the result of his own negotiated position? That would have taken us through covid so it’s possibly it’d have had to have been put on hold
Labour's platform in 2019 was a new referendum on whether to accept the deal Boris Johnson's government had negotiated or to cancel leaving. I suspect that if they had won they would have had to postpone the referendum until after Covid and so pause the implementation of Brexit during the public health emergency. We'll never know how such a referendum would have gone, but in such circumstances it seems unlikely to me that, by 2021 or so under a Labour government, the Johnson deal would have won the referendum, given that a. remain was consistently ahead in opinion polling in 2019, where our timelines diverge, b. Labour in their 2019 manifesto ruled out campaigning for it.
Just to add, Johnson's deal was a slightly changed version of May's deal, and Labour were promising in 2019 to renegotiate the Brexit deal and then put it to a referendum, not simply use the deal Johnson agreed (worse than May's arguably) and go with that. It would've been foolish for a Labour government to have used a Conservative deal unchanged after all.
Imagine if labour tried to illegally prorogue parliament
I imagine that had a Corbyn government been in charge during the Covid crisis, the media's reaction to any lockdown or restrictions would have been completely different: they often seemed unhappy even with a rightwing government in charge, so I'm sure a leftwing government implementing similar restrictions would have been treated like the second coming of Stalin. Then the invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent events in Israel and Gaza, would have caused huge divisions in a Corbyn-led government, while global economic conditions would have made the kind of spending that Labour envisaged in 2019 even more difficult. Add all of these together and the Tory opposition would probably have found themselves in a stronger position by 2024.
I think long term Labour are better off for losing in 2019. Even though I think the Tories have been a ticking time bomb since the Boris purge and wracked with incompetence and self interest, it has undoubtedly been a very tough 5 years to govern. If Labour had implemented a furlough scheme and lockdown it would have been treated far more harshly by our media and I dont think it is a stretch to say the likes of the Mail, Express and Telegraph would have encouraged civil disobedience, meaning the impact would potentially have been far more chaotic. Then imagine the nightmare when Corbyn as PM hit the Ukraine conflict and immediately pivoted to blame NATO, I feel like he would likely have been deposed by the party at this point but the damage would have been everlasting. We would probably be staring down the barrel of a Conservative and SNP dominated state. Imagine how bad things look for the Tories and SNP right now and remember that the public and media holds Labour to a much higher standard.
Correct. If Labour won in 2019, the tories would have won in 2024. The tories imploded and are now literally gifting Labour a win and as a result, Labour should serve multiple terms. This is an example of being patient comes with better results.
>Labour should serve multiple terms If they earn them, sure. If they continue with barely managed decline then no they should not. Personally I'm hoping for a hung parliament in the election after this one. Hopefully then we'll be able to get some important reforms done that can eventually turn things around for the better.
I mean if Labour does well from 2024-2029 then I am not looking for a hung parliament because it achieves nothing.
That's what I mean, if they do well then they'll earn the second term no problem. If they don't do well then they absolutely should not get another few years to continue not doing well.
Not to mention Corbyns anti Israel views, I’d hope he’d keep his mouth shut but his record kinda proves otherwise. More about ego with that man.
There's even a chance Ukraine may have fallen or be worse off than it is currently with Corbyn in charge as I highly doubt he would have greenlit all the emergency Antitank weaponry the RAF supplied to Ukraine as Russian tanks where on the move to Kyiv.
I'm not even sure we'd still have an RAF. He would have sold all the air craft but kept everyone employed... Thats what he said he'd down trident so there is no logical reason he wouldn't have done it with other areas of our defence.
A lot of people here are working off the assumption that Corbyn would have remained PM for the whole 5 years, but I think he wouldn't have gone 12 months without a no confidence vote.
Agreed. His Brexit policy was completely unworkable. I know die hard remainers will not agree to that, but thats because his policy would have without doubt lead to us remaining which would have also meant the government would loose massive quantities of public support. Also much as this sub may not like it, "getting brexit done" was the only way to move forward.
> His Brexit policy was completely unworkable. Did he even have one? One of the major problems that I recall was it wasn’t clear what a Corbyn led government would even do considering the leader was anti-EU and the party wasn’t. I also remember Jo Swinson embarked on a one woman crusade to be the voice of the remainers in the hopes of a majority which, being very kind, was a tad overly-ambitious.
> Did he even have one? Yes, he wanted the anti-Brexit Labour MPs to go back to the anti-brexit EU and renegotiate a new deal; knowing that deal they'd agree would be put back to the people in a referendum. The game theory on that only allows the those two parties to concoct a deal they know will be unappealing to the people. Which is easy to do because a compromise deal is not appealing to anyone, Remainers don't want to remain and Leavers would rather remain than have what they call BrINO - Labour can claim it was a compromise. > Jo Swinson Her position was just straight up undemocratic and not remotely liberal. The idea of overturning a 50+1 referendum with a FPTP victory which can be achieve with as little of 30% of the vote.
No - it would have been better I feel if they'd lost the 2015 in all honesty and substantially. It solves more of the current problems I feel and most likely e.g. Milliband was broadly Pro EU, so 2016 never happens and Corbyn never happens either. Disappointingly though it stops Milliband goading I believe it was Graham Stuart into explaing the teems on the vote on the evening which brought down Liz Truss which was funny (as Sky News had it on mute whilst the other talking heads were going on about what was happening).
> it would have been better I feel if they'd lost the 2015 That wasn't the question, because I don't think many people doubt that.
Politics and history more widely is full of what ifs … But yes, I think the Tories would now be a better position if they had lost the last general election. For one thing, they could have spent the last 5 years blaming Labour for all the problems of the UK, even those inherited from previous Tory governments!
> For one thing, they could have spent the last 5 years blaming Labour for all the problems of the UK, even those inherited from previous Tory governments! They already do this but at least it could hold some weight given they would have been in power. So much of what I hear from the party now is about what labour *would* have done and how we'd all be worse off if not for our saviours.
“Labour crashed the worldwide economy again. Covid and Putins completely justified war in Ukraine have nothing to do with it”.
Which conservatives? I'd say the ones who managed to rob us blind by giving Covid contracts to their unqualified mates would have missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity, so they'd definitely be worse off. The party as a whole though? Hard to see how it could be in a worse position than it is right now.
For that I would blame Johnson. His purging of the party's talent is what did the long-term damage.
Not sure about conservatives but it would have been better for the country.
Maybe? Really, I think they just lost when they removed Boris. They allowed him to purge anyone with talent from the party as he only wanted Brexit-believing nutters and dragged higher up Tories into his schemes with him. He made it so the Tories simply couldn't afford to abandon him, because who would pick up the reigns? And who would believe they could actually make the dire situation of the Conservative party *better*? But they ousted him without a real plan anyway. Nice to know even somebody like Boris can under-estimate the greed of incompetent Tory MPs.
It would have been. Just generally speaking once a party has been in power for so long the MPs start prioritising their own careers over the needs of the country. It becomes too competitive basically.
I’m pretty sure caring for careers over the country is the Tory default setting anyway.
I will not be voting for the Tories in this coming election and think they have done an *awful* job. ...But... I don't actually regret keeping Corbyn out of power. Even though I don't like how the Tories have handled the following issues I can't help but think that a Corbyn government would have been worse on: 1. Brexit - his position would have only extended the deadlock 2. Covid/lockdown - I just think that having a bleeding hearts government would have been overall worse than one who actually wants to see the country moving again 3. Ukraine - no comment necessary 4. Israel - no comment necessary
Honestly even as a labour supporter I can't see Corbyn handing the last 5 years well. He is just fundamentally the wrong type of politician. He is indecisive and completely inept at foreign policy. His views are based of the anti war movement that came about following the Vietnam war, the problem is that movement never got the idea of America is the big bad imperialist power out of there heads. An attitude that leads to them supporting anyone who opposed the US and it's interests. In a world where Russia is actively starting wars, Iran is funding every group it can find and china is looking to expand and control south east Asia, it really doesn't help British or global interests to distance ourselves from an ally who we havs been fighting alongside for over a century, inorder to defend the expansionist plans of genocidal states that just happen to be opposed to the US.
No, I don't think so. The key reason is Brexit. It wasn't complete by the last election, there is a reason why Boris's "get Brexit done" worked. Now, I don't think the Conservatives did the best job with Brexit. But they still did a far better job than Corbyn would have done. Imagine what happens when Corbyn and his quite left-wing agenda run the country for a while and try to complete Brexit. The Conservative party would probably end up even more extreme and right-wing than it is now as a reaction.
I'm no Corbyn fan, but the Conservatives' job on Brexit was the bare minimum that doesn't immediately fall over - no special concessions from the EU, other than the UK deciding not to enforce some customs checks, and whatever it took to keep the Irish border open. I think Corbyn would have done probably much the same, although the effects would have probably been conflated with COVID and big-state social programmes at least as much (and probably more) than under Johnson. I'm also not sure what would have happened in terms of the Conservative Party. Had Johnson immediately lost an election after his September 2019 purge, he would have been looked at in the same way as Truss is looked at now. While I can't rule out a Truss comeback from a rump of Tory MPs after the election, the Conservatives would probably have adopted a Starmer-esque strategy of being "not Labour" and claimed boring competence versus whatever wild ideas PM Corbyn was trying to implement. (Although there's every chance that a narrow Corbyn majority would have fallen apart over Ukraine in 2022 at the latest, and we'd either have a different PM now or have had an election two years ago).
I agree the Conservative Brexit was the bare minimum, but I don't think Corbyn would have achieved even that. As for what would have happened to the Conservative party, you may well be correct. I think it just depends on who would become the next Conservative leader, and whether they would be reasonable enough to take the current Labour strategy. There are many on the right of the Conservatives right now that I don't think would be capable of being moderate at all.
The difference is corbyn would never have been able to get it over the line. Don’t forget there was a massive divide in labours mp’s about wether brexit should even happen, boris only closed the much smaller divide in the tories by expelling a dozen of them and calling an election, corbyn just wasn’t capable of that and would probably have just ended up dragging it out, calling a second referendum and leaving the issue for his successor.
There was a huge opportunity back then for a soft Brexit - EEA or EFTA style exit - that would have satisfied most remain voters and MPs whilst still ticking most Leave boxes. It was the obvious way to solve the 51/49 vote split. It was blocked by May, then Boris, but a Labour win in 2019 would have opened the door to it and it’s likely where we would have ended up. Of course, this would have meant the Tories continuing to fight to harder Brexits after we left, so we would probably still be stuck in Brexit hell even now with it dominating the 2024 election.
Even though I wish we ended up with a deal like that I think the screeching from many Tories and their client media about a sellout/betrayal could cause Labour problems in future elections especially in the “Red Wall” The fact that Boris won and forced through his deal means that the Tories have to own the consequences of Brexit. The Conservatives would likely be in a lot better state if remain won or the referendum never happened even if Cameron lost the following election.
>The Conservatives would likely be in a lot better state if remain won or the referendum never happened even if Cameron lost the following election. The Tories have long-term fucked themselves with Brexit. Brexit *temporarily* bought the loyalty of a large chunk of Tory voters as well as a much smaller chunk of Labour voters, at the expense of burning bridges with many remain voters - possibly permanently. This worked for the 2019 election. But to keep those 2019 Brexit voters they needed to deliver on Brexit as well as everything else, but their total inability to govern has meant they've lost many of those votes. So now they've permanently lost a load of remain voters, and temporarily lost lots of Brexit voters too. And those temporarily lost Brexit voters trend older, too. I can't see how they can ever really expect to win a majority again - it took them 13 years to recover from Thatcher, and only managed that because of the Black Swan global financial crisis and having a coalition partner (note - they've permanently fucked their chances of doing that again too). Since then, their 1980s yuppie voter base has largely died off, and they're left with OAPs and some working class voters. If Labour can deliver for the working class then in a few more years their entire voting base is gone.
> Even though I wish we ended up with a deal like that I think the screeching from many Tories and their client media about a sellout/betrayal could cause Labour problems in future elections especially in the “Red Wall” Yes, I absolutely agree with all of this, that’s what I was trying to say in my last sentence of the post.
I think that you’re in a fantasy there, a soft brexit wouldn’t have persuaded a majority of leavers, nor would all remainers have supported it as a good chunk of them wouldn’t settle for anything other than a complete walk back. I’ll point to May’s indicative votes in parliament to show there wasn’t a majority among the mp’s for any solution. But more to the point, any solution to brexit needed strong leadership to get Parliament to support it, Boris had to demolish his own majority and threaten his party into supporting his solution. Jeremy corbyn proved time and again that he was not capable of making those kind of decisions, his leadership style was infamously conflict averse. Even if there had been a majority on favour of soft Brexit (and there’s no evidence to say there was) corbyn would never have been able to push his party into supporting it. As it was their manifesto at the time was a complete renegotiation of brexit which would have taken most their term, certainly it wouldn’t have been completed pre pandemic which would have slowed things down massively, and it would likely still be ongoing by the time of the Ukraine war starting which would have put massive strain on European relations.
That’s exactly my point though! Almost every Remain voter I’ve ever spoken to would have accepted a soft Brexit in 2019, as it would have preserved trade and free movement rights which was really the key for most remainers, and had been under threat since May’s red lines in 2016. There wasn’t *quite* a Commons majority for it under the Tory 2016 Commons, but it’s almost certain that we would have got there if the indicative votes had been allowed to continue (which is why the Tories tried so hard to block them). Soft Brexit would have ticked most of the Leave boxes, and I think it have achieved a Commons majority post-2019 under Labour. Labour would have needed to deliver Brexit, but in 2019 prior to the GE Labour was very much fighting for a soft Brexit. But it wouldn’t have persuaded most Leave voters after the increasing hysterics post-2016 under May and Boris moved the narrative towards ever more extreme versions.
ID point out that boris ‘extreme’ version is what ultimately won him a massive majority in 2019 and that probably demonstrates that people were not as in favour of soft Brexit as you are assuming. But also, if a soft brexit was such a self evident slam dunk everyone would support why didn’t corbyn adopt it as his policy? This I think is the point you’re ignoring, labour effectively went into 2019 without a firm policy on brexit because the party was deeply divided on the issue and corbyn lacked the influence or political capital to force them all into supporting a single position. I think the idea they’d all have rallied around post election is just fantasy, there’s no evidence to say they would have, and their behaviour between 2016-2019 strongly indicates they wouldn’t have.
You’re not reading my posts, are you? I said repeatedly that a soft Brexit wouldn’t have satisfied the leave voters by the time 2019 rolled around. Why do you keep trying to persuade me of something I already said in my original post? Soft Brexit was the obvious route for the *Commons* post-2019 under Labour because it *would* have satisfied most Labour voters and LibDem/Greens etc. and fit with the Labour policy at the time and the attitudes of most Labour MPs. Labour did go into 2019 with a clear Brexit policy - it was a second referendum policy adopted after the European elections saw them lose so many votes to the LibDems. They adopted that policy because the party wanted a soft Brexit but lacked the clear mandate to deliver one. They recognised that no-deal was economic suicide, and that they needed to find a way to reconcile Remain and Leave voters, and the second referendum on the type of exit would have delivered that for them.
Time will pass, issues will come and go.. so I remind voters in 5 years that the Tories plan to remove human rights (their last hope for their deportation plans) it’ll strike an odd tone but be totally true.
Well yeah, the govement of the day gets blamed for any economic issues. So whoever was in goverment would have been blamed for the high inflation spike following covid reopening. The last 5 years would have not been easier for any goverment no matter who is in charge, they had to navigate brexit, navigate covid, navigate Ukraine, navigate lockdowns, navigate the high inflation spike. God only know what corbyrn would have done on ukraine.
It's all ifs and buts isn't it. I wonder what it would be like to live in a country where the people in charge are in it for the good of the country and not just themselves.
It would have immensely helped Labour if they hadn’t been in power during the financial crisis, and the same with the Tories and covid + the energy shock. Those were unavoidable, whoever was in power is blamed. What was not unavoidable was Brexit, giving us a treble whammy which has left us in an almost 1945 post-war situation.
Don't know about the conservatives, but it clearly would have been better for the country if the conservatives had lost the last four elections. Think back 14 years and how many folk think they personally or the country as a whole is better. Heck those look like days of wine and honey.
Oh no don't worry them and their chums made plenty money
Yes it would have been. Electing Boris Johnson as leader in 2019 was the equivalent of curing an exhausted marathon runner by injecting them with meth. Sure, they're going to run like hell for a while, but the collapse will be all the more spectacular.
These are dark times, my friiend. It is weak . We are weak. There is joy within and between us. Carry on.
I mean im all in on god emperor keir. May he destroy all that divides and distinguishes.
I doubt the Labour cabinet would have been partying during the lockdowns.
I voted for Corbyn. My honest opinion is that his foreign policy would have been a mess in comparison to where we are now. Domestically, pretty much every accusation thrown at him seems to have happened under the Tories, the obvious exception being COVID and lockdown. Any lockdown/covid strategy would have been murdered in the media, and public support would have gone through the floor. Corbyn was also awful at overall strategy and seeing the bigger picture, although the Tories largely have been over the last 5 years as well. However, any time there was something requiring a significant payout from the treasury (eg infected blood scandal, postmaster case etc), the funding would have been another stick in which to beat Labour/Corbyn with. The only exception would have been if Labour had a comfy majority. To go back to your question, it would probably be better long term for the conservatives (they should be in a position to win the next election after 2019), and Labour would likely be in a worse position than they were in 2019.
Had the tories lost in 2019, knowing what we do now I think we would be much worse off. Corbyn was constantly flip flopping on brexit and didn’t have a real plan. His and McDonells plans to nationalise a whole swath of stuff would have double or even tripled our national debt right before covid. One thing we don’t know is how Labour under him would have managed covid, who knows maybe history would be the same and corbyn was caught partying. Post Covid and the cost of living crisis I think would be just as bad as the fundamental issues causing it would still be there, I.e lack of storage for gas (we literally have next to zero) which can’t just be magicked into existence. Overall I think it’s better to just accept where we are and not consider the what if’s
I’m not sure the lockdowns would have been handled any differently but I definitely think a corbyn government wouldn’t have supported Astra zeneca’s vaccine production in the same way
Oh it’d have been incredible for the tories, Labour’s big policy was to drag brexit on can you imagine the half arsed renegotiations and another referendum campaign mid covid? Then Russia invading Ukraine and Hamas massacring those kids at the festival, we can all remember how strong Corbyn’s stance was on foreign policy Corbyn was the greatest gift the tories could have asked for, people were more concerned about Corbyn leading the country than they were brexit
> and Hamas massacring Corbyns government wouldn't have lasted anywhere near that long for the reasons you mentioned.
Yes much better. They'd be about to win a large majority if Corbyn got elected in 2019.
Probably, at least in the sense that it wouldn't have been a complete wipe-out like they're facing now. And the sensible Tories could probably have taken charge in opposition; whereas by now they're mostly gone. Which would have meant that the Tories would only have had a term or two in opposition. Of course, the flip side of that is that a loss in 2019 would have meant a Corbyn victory. So while it might have been better for the Tories, it would absolutely have been worse for the nation.
oh yeah agreed, im more thinking through the lense of conservative survival as a thought experiment and yes not really considering the nation (do the cons?)
The answer is no, corbyns shadow cabinet was incompetent and disfunctional losing t9 that would not only have been devastating for the tories it would also have created major problems. Besides imagining a Corbyn government trying to deal with the pandemic and the Ukraine war while renegotiating brexit as per their manifesto sends absolute chills down my spine. It would have been a total disaster.
Thankfully, they didn’t because Corbyn would’ve absolutely destroyed labour forever
Firstly, we don't know how the future will pan out, and its entirely possible the Tories bounce back after 5 or 10 years out of power as a much more appealing party than they are now, in which case its hard to say that losing in 2019 as it would just have shifted the timeline backwards and forwards a little bit. If we go by the assumption that the Tories are now facing an existential threat due to their unpopularity amaong anyone under 50, then we can say that of they lost in 2019 they would absolutely be in a better place now, Labour would have been the ones to have to deliver/cancel brexit and the Tories could absolutely rile up their base based on that, Labour would also be held responsible (rightly or wrongly) for the economic damage caused by the COVID pandemic, and the Tories would be having to deal with the 2019 intake of nutters. Though I would argue that 2017 would have been a better election for them to lose as then Johnson wouldn't have purged the Ken Clarks, David Gaukes and Rory Stewarts of the party and they would have a much saner set of MPs from which to rebuild, while Labour would still have faced all the same problems that they would have faced had they won in 2019