Why do some people think Corbyn was a ‘terrifying prospect’?

[StillCuriouser]

Taking a quote from a comment made on another thread.

I am not massively engaged in politics, but from what I understand Corbyn was pro-environment, pro-public services and re-nationalisation, he was a man who lived according to his own values.
He was laughed at for riding a bike and making jam. He was accused of being anti-semitic, though I didn't see any persuasive evidence of this, and- though not wanting to engage in whataboutery- Johnson’s awful racist remarks didn’t prevent him from gaining power.

I understand that people will have disagreed with him in policy. But what about him was did people feel was “terrifying” and so beyond the pale?
If Boris was electable and Corbyn was not I feel there must be something horrific about Corbyn that I am missing?

People believe what they are told OP. That's the problem. Corbyn wasn't anti-Semitic he was critical of the Israeli government which pursues apartheid style policies towards Palestinians. anti-Semitism has been reclassified to include criticisms of the Israeli government. Those saying socialism doesn't work need to research their own history. Corbyn's policies were socialist but so we're the 1945 Attlee government's that set up the NHS. The conservatives through most of the 50s didn't undo those policies and living standards rose more quickly than at any other point in history. Capitalism brought us slavery, imperialism, and endless wars over resources. The good bits are down to the socialists and social campaigners trying to make things better

His plan to renationalise water was to buy it at less than its value. Had he succeeded, it would have led to all sorts of legal battles.

The reason people did not vote for him was because they were saw that rather than being the man of the people he pretended to be he was in fact an extremely privileged person who seemed determined to take away any privileges from everyone-privileges he himself had gained from.
He is, and allowed antisemitic behaviour.
He did seem to think that home ownership=owner was well off and would be able to take the extra taxes/charges he was no doubt formulating. We all know that is not true.
I got the impression that he had very old fashioned, and patronising ideas of the ‘working class’ and was desperate to ‘help’ them. While knowing nothing of being a working person himself.
He was thick as shit and being used as a straw man for people much more intelligent and dangerous than himself.

I'm not sure capitalism is working well for many in this country. Although I will suspect they will continue to vote Tory anyway, and keep screwing themselves over. It's unbelievable

I thought he criticised Israel's foreign policy....which is fair by my understanding. Wasn't he against a Zionist state as it led to the persecution of Palestinians? How is this anti semetic

Because its what boris and the tories said about him and people lack critical thought. He was pitched as the big bad by Dominic Cummings and people fell for it.

He was a guy of strong personal values which were too extreme for a party which has been pretty centrist for decades and wasnt a good "manager" in terms of the role of party leader.

Have you actually read Animal Farm?

Of course they aren't. It's more difficult to fake the wide eyed innocent look than op was expecting.

Threads like this are aways irritating.

Corbyn wasnt an anti-semite it was spun that way for obvious reasons.
(Its not like he personally has a history of making such statements on a public stage, that would be disgusting)

Noone mentions the people within the labour government who caused friction within the labour party at the time, straight after the election being made lords by Boris Johnson.

But he was never going to be a viable option, people dismissed him as he was talking like we had a "money tree" the tories outspent them massively, noone cared.

Anyone who did their homework before voting, knew boris johnson was a liar, knew he treated women with contempt, knew he was fickle with his "stances" and would always go with what helped serve his own personal agenda but they voted anyway.
I did see Corbyn as a much better option to the above, (not a corbyn lover) as i felt he really wanted to level the playing field and do better. Noone will ever know how that would have worked out, but its my belief.

You have to remember OP after all what has happened certain people are still defending Boris, its quite scary.

I agree with this. I remember asking people what they didn’t like about Corbyn and no one could give me an answer that wasn’t ‘I just don’t like him’.

This is a great post @Aishah321

People who voted for him will blame anything bar him missing the mark, sometimes the person running is responsible for the loss because they don’t get the electorate not the other way round.

I don’t know why individually each person didn’t vote for him, seems a long time after to scrutinise it, but even Labour were keen to move away from what he represented.

He was unpatriotic, uncharismatic, uncompromising, and crucially incapable of concluding the Brexit deadlock in Parliament or forming a Government without the support of the SNP.

As bad as the past two years have been under Johnson, the country still made the correct decision in 2019.

This.
Also had some very, very nasty people behind him.
Also totally impossible to see him as a leader on the world stage. Yes Boris is a scruffy , bumbling ( all an act ) arse but Jeremy was an awkward little man with no idea how to dress. The white tie and tails for the state dinner was just embarrassing.He looked an out of place idiot.

Corbyn encouraged antisemites. I watched him smiling beatifically as an anti semite ripped into Luciana Berger a few feet in front of him. Genuinely thought about leaving the country if he got in. My Dad was Jewish.

I actually think both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn were useful idiots for more clever and dangerous people in the shadows.

Well you know why now because you're on a thread full of people telling you why.

There have been countless threads like this on mn so no excuse for not being well aware of why a Corbyn led Labour lost to the Conservatives.

Before you dismiss this as me being a Boris apologist, I detest the man and can see myself spoiling my ballot if the caliber of all politicians doesn't improve soon.

I think Keir Starmer is a good leader and able to deal with party management so that he's got a roughly organised proposition to offer the public, as well as offering decent left of centre politics. I'm going to vote tactically for him.

I thought Corbyn was a terrible party leader - anyone remember all his MPs effectively trying to resign from under him as they couldn't stand his leadership any more? But Jeremy's adoring members kept him there. He was surrounded by unpleasant people like Seumas Milne and appeared deaf to some really vile anti Semitism promoted by people he courted.

I think he should have owned his own Lexiter views - he was clearly too weak to do that. He probably wouldn't have been elected as leader if he had though. His obvious lack of enthusiasm for the EU was part of what gave us Brexit. Johnson got less votes than May in fact, but still got a majority because of total stasis in Parliament, Brexit, a good electoral machine and party management. Good riddance to Corbyn.

Borrow and spend is the policy that is most ruinous to our DC.

And that's how he would have funded expansion, even with higher taxes, we'd have needed more borrowing just to fund that core programme, and then more for covid.

Sunak is talking about the need to rein in borrowing again, which makes for straitened times ahead. But I think we all instinctively know that we can't keep living on the never-never, or we'll end up back in need of an international bail-out (as happened with IMF intervention in the 1970s)

Thatcher repaired the economy so well that many people have forgotten how bad it was, or have never learned about it. But those of us who lived through it remember only too well, and perhaps simply wanted to avoid sleepwalking into disaster

Jeremy Corbyn had neither personality nor competence. Fine as the leader if the opposition, not a chance of being seen as anything worth bothering with on the world stage.

Investigations found that he didn't do enough to stamp out antisemitism in the Labour party, somehow that's been turned into him being a huge antisemite. A lot of people spent a lot of time and money convincing the electorate he was a communist, antisemite, terrorist, unelectable... The same ones who told us all those lies about the EU and how wonderful brexit would be.

To those who say socialism doesn't work, why are the Nordic countries so successful, rich, happy, educated...?

Does anyone remember the mural in east London? It was criticized (rightly) for anti-Semitism and Corbyn, on Twitter, questioned its removal. He later said he hadn't seen it.

At best, far too maladroit in someone who aspired to be PM.

People thought Johnson was great and the answer to our problems. This has been shown to be utter bollocks. It's amazing that people can't understand that it's possible that the media that mis sold them Johnson so completely might have done a number on them when it comes to Corbyn as well.

Corybn is absolutely not an anti-Semite. It's ridiculous to suggest that someone who throughout his career battled racism so furiously (specifically in defence of the Jewish people on a number of occasions) would be.

Apart from the serious issues stated in the thread, my issue is that Corbyn was too left wing/ random/ worrying for the Labour Party to be a valid vote which meant the tories had a deeper stronghold than before.

I remember he was mocked for that. But surely since then we have had extra public holidays? 🤔