The reasons behind Boris Johnson’s stunning victory in the December 2019 General Election can be analysed in three words: Jeremy Fucking Corbyn.

When Corbyn was elected leader of the UK’s Labour Party in September 2015, many, myself included, expressed great delight; at last, someone on the left who would restore the party to its core traditional values of nationalisation of public services, end austerity cuts wherever possible and a less interventionist approach to military strategy abroad.  He had been put forward for candidacy simply to give the left of the party a voice; MPs wanted as broad a political debate within the Labour Leadership contest as possible.

When Theresa May, then Prime Minister, called a snap general election in June 2017, Labour, under Corbyn, was able to increase its vote share to 40%, and force Mrs May to do a deal with the DUP in order to stay in government.  And this was after his own party had forced him into a second leadership contest the previous year, which he also won.  From the outsider’s point of view, Corbyn seemed right for the leadership, and it wouldn’t be long – five years, according to the Fixed-Term Parliament Act of 2011 – before he would be Prime Minister.

The confusing issue for me was: how come, if he was so unpopular within his own party, he was twice elected its leader?

Even Wikipedia, which could hardly be described as having an anti-Corbyn agenda, points out the fact that any member of the public who supported Labour, could register as affiliated members for the princely sum of three pounds Sterling, and therefore vote in any leadership election.  Corbyn won by a landslide – even without these additional voters – achieving a 49.6% share of the full-member vote.  Furthermore, in the space of just a few weeks after Corbyn was elected leader, membership of the party almost doubled.

Then came the EU Referendum on 23 June 2016.

Three days after the country voted by a narrow margin to Leave the EU, Corbyn sacked Hilary Benn because it turned out that he had been organising a mass resignation of Shadow Cabinet members in order to force Corbyn to resign.  Nevertheless, nine members of the Shadow Cabinet did resign, and the Labour Party was now in open civil war.

Soon after the Referendum result, Corbyn lost a vote of no confidence among Labour MPs by a margin of more than four to one.  It was then we began to see the ‘real’ Jeremy Corbyn for the first time.  He argued that the vote had no constitutional legitimacy and he would carry on as leader.

Within 24 hours of the Referendum result, both of the UK’s major political parties, Conservative and Labour, were in meltdown.  David Cameron, whose idea this whole mess was, and had supported Remain (as did Corbyn), resigned as Prime Minister soon after the result was known.  Jeremy Corbyn was all but kicked out of his job as Labour leader, except that he refused to go.

During the next three years, MPs tried and failed to ‘get Brexit done.’  Silly parliamentary tricks were employed, such as voting abstentions ordered by Corbyn, to stop Brexit legislation going through.  Little else could be achieved in Parliament, because Brexit was dominating everything.  And Mrs May’s inability to get her legislation through Parliament was dominating all of that.  Indeed, Parliamentary trickery meant that the initial date for the UK’s departure from the EU, 29 March 2019, passed by without a deal and without our departure.  The EU granted an extension to 31 October.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, were having issues of their own; Theresa May was forced to resign over her ineffectiveness in dealing with the Brexit problem.  In came Boris Johnson in July 2019.  From the start, he pledged to have the UK out of the EU by its new date, 31 October 2019.

Johnson’s luck fared no better; he tried to get the necessary Brexit legislation through Parliament, and he was blocked at every turn.  Well, we’ll leave anyway, regardless of what Parliament says.  You can’t do that, said Corbyn (and others), that’s not democratic.  Oh, and you’re being democratic in calling for a second referendum, cried Johnson.

The Prime Minister refused to budge on the departure date, after Corbyn said that MPs needed more time to debate it.  Eventually, at the 11th hour, Johnson finally relented on asking the EU for a further delay, as long as Parliament agreed to vote in favour of another general election.  It was childish stuff.  Johnson wrote to the EU saying it was Parliament’s wish to gain a further extension, not his.  The EU granted this delay, now until 31 January 2020.  Johnson ordered a general election to be held on 12 December 2019, the first December election since 1923, and the third one since the Fixed-Term Parliament Act was passed just eight years ago.

I should point out that the negative media coverage of Jeremy Corbyn, particularly since the 2017 election, has been relentless.  The guy is stubborn, there’s no doubt of that.  He has held on to the leadership where many would have let go.  And his support for the lower paid, the working class, the less fortunate in society, is admirable, as is his support for re-nationalisation of public services and for an end to austerity wherever possible.

BUT: 2019 turned out to be a very bad year for Mr Corbyn.  In February, a number of Labour MPs, including potential leadership candidate Chuka Umunna, resigned from the party and formed The Independent Group.  They were disinclined to accept the party’s left-leaning policies, and more importantly, allegations of antisemitism within the party’s membership.

While these allegations could not be directly proven, the Labour leadership’s (i.e., Corbyn’s), ineffectiveness in dealing with the situation risked “…lending force to allegations that elements of the Labour movement are institutionally antisemitic” (Boffey, Daniel; Sherwood, Harriet (16 October 2016). “Jeremy Corbyn accused of incompetence by MPs over antisemitic abuse”. The Observer.)

In April 2019, the Jewish Labour Movement passed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn’s leadership, while six members of the House of Lords resigned from the party.  Corbyn has, in fact, repeatedly condemned antisemitism, but it wasn’t enough; there seems to be little factual evidence to support any theory that he is in any way antisemitic, or misogynistic, but nevertheless these allegations continued to persist.

However, there was greater evidence for Corbyn’s previous support for the end of British rule in Northern Ireland.  Several times during the 1980’s he was pictured with senior members of Sinn Fein, the so-called (alleged) political wing of the IRA.  Corbyn opposed the Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985, but supported the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.  More seriously than that, Corbyn has repeatedly declined in interviews to condemn the use of violence by the IRA during the Troubles of the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s.

All of the above is a very brief analysis of the reasons behind the opposition within the Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.  But at the end of it all, some mysteries do remain; if he is so unpopular, how was he elected twice?  Where is the evidence for his so called antisemitism and misogyny? An article titled ‘Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite,’ appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 5 December 2019, but provided no evidence of same, smily accusing him of presiding while other members of the party were (allegedly) offensive to Jewish colleagues, according to the Jewish Labour Movement’s submission to an investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

At the end of the day, Corbyn has been damned by media pressure, and by opposition to his direction to take Labour more to its origins in the political left, with all its faults.  Nobody is perfect, and no political ideology is either, but I supported Corbyn’s core value of treating everybody equally, but offering particular consideration to those in society who have been less fortunate than others.

Corbyn has not had the strength of character, charisma, call it what you will, to successfully challenge these criticisms of him.  He has been knocked from pillar to post, and seems unwilling to do anything about it except to say, “I’m staying, and you can’t stop me.”

Even now, after Labour’s worst election defeat since 1935, Corbyn refuses to stand down immediately.  He says he will not fight the next election, but that could be five years from now.  It is clear now that Corbyn must go, and a new direction found for the party.  In my view, it is necessary for all sides – left, centre and right – to make concessions and find a unified direction forward so that Labour can mount a serious challenge for government at the next election.  Otherwise, they are doomed to repeat the eighteen years they spent in the political wilderness between 1979 and 1997 with a further eighteen years – maybe more – without a sniff of power.  It is also clear that a leader has to come from the political ‘centre ground,’ with understanding and empathy for both sides of the political argument.

Unfortunately, Jeremy Corbyn’s stubbornness, lack of character and unwillingness to challenge some of the more unsavoury aspects of the Labour movement’s membership, has brought Labour to its knees and allowed Boris Johnson to claim the so-called ‘Red Wall’ – the row of constituencies in the north of England stretching from North Wales to the east coast – in December 2019.  These constituencies have been Labour for decades – one for 130 years – before Brexit and dissatisfaction with Corbyn forced them to vote Conservative, many for the first time in their lives, their parents’ lives, and in some cases their great-grandparents’ lives.  Boris Johnson, disgusting character that he is, does not even need to take the blame for Labour’s defeat in the election, he didn’t have to do anything.  Jeremy Corbyn did it all for him.

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