I’m hearing Jeremy Corbyn is going to lose his seat

[noblegiraffe]

If so, this is the election that just keeps on giving.

His refusal to stand down gave us Boris Johnson so it would be nothing less than he deserves.

He still has his blind spot for Jews and antisemitism doesn't he?

I suspect that half or more of Labour MPs suffer from same blind spot.

He was my MP for 7 years until quite recently and we didn’t hear a peep out of him in that period, election time or otherwise. We didn’t even get fliers! Literal radio silence.

I can’t understand where the Jeremy adoration comes from because he appeared rather absent and more interested in defending tin pot dictators than doing anything useful locally.

Not sure how? Most of them are new.

How many MPs continue to fight for their constituents when they suffer a loss? Very few. He will always be a fantastic person standing up for people who need it. I’m not a fanatic, just recognising one of the few people who genuinely wants to improve lives.

It is telling how far right MN is that Corbyn and what he represents is still seen as wrong. We all know why the media lied and attacked him but people still believe what they read.

I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t see anything improving under Starmer, he’ll always be a red Tory. U turning on Net Zero was unforgivable.

I am delighted for him.

It's not clear to me that he wouldn't have won if his time had been now, either. His first campaign saw labour get similar votes to those Starmer got. The main difference between now and then is Tory collapse.

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I voted Labour this time, with some reservations, but they were the least worst option. When Corbyn was leader I didn't vote for them. Same MP. I trust her as much as I trust any MP. She's a good constituency MP and not a Momentum supporter. But with him in charge I didn't trust the party, and that would have applied even more now, because he would have promised unequivocal support for the Palestinians and left Israel exposed. I don't condone in any way the horrific violence coming from the IDF, but this isn't a simple issue where you pick a side.

I used to work in Islington north. People from across different ages/classes/races spoke very highly of him. He seemed to want to help regardless of whether they voted for him or not. He's a great local MP.
He should never have been leader of the party. But am pleased for him and for his constituents.

@Porridgeislife interesting. Did you ask him for help on a local issue?

But would the e Tory vote have collapsed if he was still Leader of the Opposition. I suspect not because he frightened people. And they would have held nose and voted Tory with the Reform vote squeezed. You can't just swap Corbyn for Starmer and say victory was inevitable. Starmer has steered it home and the collapse has happened because he doesn't alarm 2019 Tory voters

Starmer not calling for a Gaza cease fire is terrible. If that was Corbyn people would be vicious about it.

Yeah 5 more years of Irritable Duncan Syndrome. Thanks Keir. You interfering berk.

Direct your concerns to Jezza's Jewish friends perhaps. Or all the Jewish people expelled from the party by Starmer and Co

@Porridgeislife that's really sad to hear. I was there when he wasn't or hadn't just been leader of the party so maybe that made a difference.

On another note I really can't get how he is made out as the devil when you look at so many other politicians, but then I never got the Boris idolisation at all. I think some people just thought he should be leader because he sounded posh and used clever words rather than looking at his rather nasty character 😭 he literally bamboozled people into letting him ruin our country.

Don’t worry, I have about as much time for Boris Johnson as I do for Jeremy Corbyn. Both conspired to bring about Brexit. Corbyn by being utterly useless and wandering off to Turkey for holibobs mid-campaign, and Johnson being a pathological liar and opportunist.

I'm not sure you can say he was unelectable when Labour got more votes under Corbyn than under Starmer. Reform saved the day for Starmer this time around.

And yet Starmer is Prime Minister and Corbyn failed to be elected prime minister twice.

Yes because Reform split the Conservative vote. Not because Labour got more votes under Starmer. Labour got a landslide yesterday because of hatred of the Conservatives not because people think Keir is a wonderful leader.

At least Corbyn has principles and stands by them.

Starmer has dropped every pledge he made when he stood to be Labour leader. He dropped Net Zero.

Again with the anti semitism.

Corbyn has been calling for a Gaza ceasefire and yet Starmer doesn’t.

It was proven it was a tactic to distract from the campaign.

This thread needs to go into classics!!

As far as I can see, Labour didn't set out to get more total votes across the country than they did under Corbyn, because that wouldn't necessarily have given them what they wanted, which was a lot of MPs. Starmer is a realist and he understands what some other politicians seem to struggle with - you can't change anything unless you have enough MPs to be sure you can vote all your policies through. There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons so you need well over half that, i.e. 325 minimum.

If you are more concerned with being ideologically pure, as Corbyn seemed to be, it's very nice to be able to say 'Look at all the millions who voted for me, that shows lots of people agree with me!' but if it doesn't translate into MPs the policies will never be implemented.

Campaigning costs money and it takes time and effort to organise. A big party like Labour has lots of volunteers and strategists but you want to use both volunteers and funding to maximum efficiency. It's pointless doing a lot of canvassing in seats where you know you're likely to win anyway. The places where you need to canvass are the ones where you might just be able to sway enough voters for your candidate to win in that seat. Tony Blair knew this and so does Starmer. (So does Ed Davey.) I am extremely impressed by the efficiency of Labour's efforts in this election. They have a huge number of MPs from a similar number of total votes as in the last election. Now they can actually get on and govern.

People trusted them to do this not because they think Starmer is 'a wonderful leader' but because they can see he is sensible, competent, measured and intelligent, he has the respect of his MPs and party workers (most of them, anyway) and there is good party discipline. That's what we need now as an antidote to the years of Tory incompetence, self-interest and backstabbing. Corbyn was unable to provide any of that.

My comment was in reaction to OP saying he was unelectable.

Yes. You can’t say that Starmer benefited from the Tory vote collapsing without considering whether the Tory vote would have collapsed making Corbyn PM. Absolutely fucking not. He was toxic and divisive and would have galvanised the ‘keep Corbyn out’ vote in a way that the media’s threats of ‘vote Starmer get Rayner’ didn’t work.

Tories ditched the Tories for Reform even though they knew Farage had no chance of being PM because they weren’t that scared of Starmer as PM.

Corbyn was a liability who motivated Tory voters to vote Tory.

Starmer worked really hard to not scare the horses. It meant that he didn’t seem to have any radical policies or really take a stance on anything, but it won him the election in a way that Corbyn never could have.

The goal in the UK system is to get the most MPs, not the most votes. On this metric, Keir Starmer is vastly superior to anything Corbyn ever attempted.

There’s little point getting the most votes if you’re still in opposition. You can’t change things from the wrong side of the benches. Corbyn never really wanted to win (see also: Brexit) and didn’t campaign tactically to do so, so he was a totally useless (being kind) to outright negligent (being critical) leader that let everyone down.