Would Labour have won this election with Jeremy Corbyn as leader?

[The Card Cheat]

I heard somewhere Labour actually got more votes in the previous but one election under Corbyn and the Tories are an absolute unelectable car crash at the moment.
Obviously it's purely theoretical, and this isn't meant to diminish what Labour under Starmer have achieved but I'm interested in what people think?

 

[Kevo4]

Labour couldn’t lose this election, the tories were given enough rope

 

[Scrote]

It largely depends on whether the Labour party machine decided they wanted the win or not. I'd imagine not, given what we saw in 2017 and 2019.

The media wouldn't have been nearly as accommodating, either.

It's a shame, but the reality is that the nation is easily convinced to push right when it comes to bit of light-touch socialism.

Hopefully Labour will now do the pivot that everyone told us they'd do, until about three weeks ago, when it suddenly became pragmatic to do nothing much for the first five years.

All the noises about the economy suggest the latter.

 

[Steer]

Corbyn did not appear to the swing voters. I think against this shambles of a Tory government that he might he won with a small margin, but nothing like what we have seen today.

 

[Nano]

I heard somewhere Labour actually got more votes in the previous but one election under Corbyn and the Tories are an absolute unelectable car crash at the moment.
Obviously it's purely theoretical, and this isn't meant to diminish what Labour under Starmer have achieved but I'm interested in what people think?

They got more votes in both elections Corbyn stood as leader than they have in this one. I'm a big Corbyn fan but I don't know if Corbyn would have won, certainly not with such a majority. If Corbyn hadn't been leader previously and this was his first election then I think he probably could because people like what he offers. I think Corbyn the person was the problem though, he was too easy to discredit due to his history, but his politics weren't a problem. Keir Starmer, or anyone for that matter, would still have won this election comfortably with a Corbyn style manifesto instead of the one they went with.

Corbyn also got more votes in his constituency in this election standing as an independent than Starmer received in his constituency so he is popular. There are a lot more people around the country that would vote for Corbyn but there are also a lot more that would vote against him.

 

[ForssAwakens]

Yes, Labour could have won this with a paper shredder as leader

 

[Nano]

Corbyn did not appear to the swing voters. I think against this shambles of a Tory government that he might he won with a small margin, but nothing like what we have seen today.

Did Starmer appeal to swing voters? The reason Labour have a landslide is because Tory voters voted for Reform, Lib Dem or didn't vote. Labour's vote has gone down. They will have gained some from the Tories but they've also lost others to the Lib Dems and Greens. There hasn't been a big swing from Tory to Labour.

 

[parmoboy]

Corbyn's indecisiveness regarding Brexit put a lot of voters off at the time.

Conservatives got in largely on a protest vote over Brexit.

 

[HolgateCorner]

Impossible to say, the dynamics of the vote would have been completely different with Corbyn as leader.

 

[MolteniArcore]

I would say no. If Corbyn was leader I think we might have had Johnson still in power. I really think that Starmer gave Johnson the rope to hang himself with.

 

[indeedido]

No I don't think Corbyn would have won. He's been marginalised superbly by Starmer.

 

[speckyget]

Not a chance in hell. Corbyn demonstrated that he couldn't impose any discipline on the Labour Party, so would not have taken it to the position where it could win an election. That, and his political baggage made him such an easy Aunt Sally for the media. They even tried to taint Starmer by mere association this time round.

 

[festa5]

The tories helped massively but Starmer has played the game very well. Labour haven't won as many votes, but they've won them in the right places. I don't think that's luck.

It would've been a completely different campaign under Corbyn. Would've been both more optimistic and more divisive. Really impossible to say how it would've ended.

I think Labour would probably still have won, but not by as much and with reform doing even better than they have.

 

[Zoophonic]

At best a majority party win rather than outright but probably not. The country needed a centrist party to vote for and tens of constituencies like Worthing wouldn't have voted for a party with Corbyn as leader.

 

[Ziggy]

No, Starmer is establishment to the core…one of them. Corbyn was anti everything they stand for. He was never, ever going to be allowed to be PM.
“Yea unto the Middle Ages”
We live in a matrix, with an illusion of democracy. We share, in Europe, a voting system with only one other country. Belarus. The Labour Party was taken over and shaped into a version that was acceptable….and so it goes
If you think this is mad. You are probably right

 

[BeanBeany]

No, especially not now with Gaza and Ukraine going on

 

[Andy_W]

I heard somewhere Labour actually got more votes in the previous but one election under Corbyn and the Tories are an absolute unelectable car crash at the moment.
Obviously it's purely theoretical, and this isn't meant to diminish what Labour under Starmer have achieved but I'm interested in what people think?

It's 2024, not 2017, so you can't really compare those, too much has happened since, but anyway...

Labour got 32% in 2019 (lost by 12%) in a largely two horse race, they got 34% in this one (won by 10%), which was more like a 2 + 2 race.

They got 40% in 2017 which was their best chance, but the trend line since was the wrong direction, largely as Corbyn couldn't handle or nullify the press. A more EU appealing Labour leader might have not led to a brexit vote getting through, or a more centrist appearing leader might have been able to beat May. By 2019 Labour were cooked, nobody deserves to have another go after a brexit and two election losses, there was no coming back from that (apparently), yet here we are.

Vote numbers from one election to the next, don't mean much without considering what votes the other parties get, or more importantly, how that transpires into seats.

In PR, Corbyn or another leader might have done similar on raw voter numbers, or maybe even better (or worse), but the game is FPTP, it's always been that way. It's a crap game when you're on the losing side or not in power, but that's the way it is unfortunately. To win, and wrestle back power, at FPTP you need to get votes nationally to a certain line which requires a more tactical approach which Corbyn and his team were bad at, and it's what Starmer and his team have nailed.

Loads of the reason the Tories kept votes and reform won votes is because they call Starmer a leftie or say "you can't trust Labour etc", that would have been 10x louder if JC was there.

 

[Theyalwaysletyoudown]

No. The work Starmer has done to make Labour as inoffensive as possible over the last 4 years is what has given the media space over to allow the Tories to hang themselves. I think with Corbyn still as a bogeyman, Partygate etc gets far less visibility and he fails to prosecute it properly and press the advantage.

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

Had this version of the Tory party been around in 2017 Corbyn would have romped home. Unfortunately back then the implosion had only just started.

 

[Zoophonic]

No. The work Starmer has done to make Labour as inoffensive as possible over the last 4 years is what has given the media space over to allow the Tories to hang themselves. I think with Corbyn still as a bogeyman, Partygate etc gets far less visibility and he fails to prosecute it properly and press the advantage.