Or perhaps its just because Borris had just been elected with a majority to do so and the promise to get it done.
Not exciting at that point would arguably have been far more cynical.
Not exciting at that point would arguably have been far more cynical.
"Brexit: No majority for any options after MPs' votes"[0]
I know several people that disliked Johnson but were scared by the prospect of Corbyn being allowed into power.
A curse on both their houses if ask me.
1. We done vote for political leaders in the UK, we vote for our local MP and they choose a party leader to become PM.
1) MPs declined to support any Brexit proposal at all, because the house was majority Remainers who thought if they refused to act for long enough Brexit might never actually happen? Even the softest of soft Brexit was too much for them to stomach.
plus somewhat in parallel
2) the Labour party managed to select Corbyn to lead them
Q: is anyone actually surprised how the 2019 election turned out?
Seems the UK political elite had several chances, and one after another, blew them all.
So the voters sighed, swore, and the UK got Boris's Brexit.
The reporting and media class is either captured by the conservative and anything else slowly towards the conservatives views in a desperate effort to try and curry their favour, or sinks into the mud and joins the ranks of the tabloid trash no one takes seriously but buys anyway since it’s basically entertainment not really news reporting.
At worst Corbyn was a Bernie sanders, he would have shaken things up, rebuilding the social fabric that makes up various safety nets, refunded important social efforts like hospitals, infrastructure, that sort of thing, he might even have built more social housing and raised taxes on rich people that could afford it. That’s not Stalin, that’s not even Marx, it’s just someone who thinks government can genuinely help people by being a strong foundation that everyone gets to benefit from… as far as I can tell, he was scary because he was a “threat” to house prices continued unsustainable rise in value, and the bloated bank balances of rich people and companies who might have had to pay more taxes.
But as someone who’s only learned this perspective from remote sources (I live in Australia and follow various UK things with different perspectives) I’d love to add your own perspective on the whole failed social movement that was Jeremy Corbyn.
I don't know the answer to that but it's a very good question.
There is definitely a strong connection in the UK between right-wing, Oxford educated journalists and Tory politicians. Johnson himself was/is an Oxford educated journalist; he'd been fired for lying by various papers prior to becoming an MP.
Since you ask about Corbyn, I don't see him as similar to Bernie Sanders. He much further to the left but more than that he's unelectable as the author of his own FUD.
It's definitely not his stance on taxing the rich or house prices people worry about.
He's seen as "dangerous" by the great unwashed because he regularly talks about disbanding NATO and appeasing Putin[1]. If you take the view that Putin does what he does because he's an absolute ruler and a megalomaniac then that's a dangerous position.
In general he comes across as someone economical with the truth. E.g. He filmed himself sitting on the floor of a train saying he couldn't get a seat because the train was full[2]... except the train operator release CCTV footage that showed the train was empty at the time of filming. He was trying to make a point by using a lie, that makes him look untrustworthy.
Then there's his alleged association with various terrorist groups. I don't think he's involved with terrorism or even supports those causes but... he keeps turning up in dodgy places, and that makes him look untrustworthy too.
Like the laying of a wreath for the Black September terror group behind the Munich massacre[3]. He says he wasn't involved but just so happened to be photographed in Tunisia. In the same cemetery. At the same time, a few feet away, behind a microphone... and holding a wreath.
And who paid for the trip? We don't know because he didn't declare it. The reporting of that was clearly politically motivated but even with the benefit of the doubt that looks dodgy as hell.
Then there's the people close to Corbyn. Like Diane "Every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us" Abbott[4]. For the sake of argument, you might agree with everything she says but surely you can see why others think she is against their best interests.
Or his brother, Piers Corbyn, the professional conspiracy theorist[5]. It's guilt by association but it doesn't make him look like a safe pair of hands.
Or his backing of Russia after the Salisbury Poisoning attack, or the allegations of antisemitism under his leadership, or... the list goes on and on.
You might think it's all circumstantial or whipped up by right-wing journalists, and let's face it there's a lot of that. Still, there's just too many gaffs to make him electable with the general public. Even when running against someone as blatantly awful as Johnson.
For the record I voted Labour in the last general election but I hated doing it with Corbyn as their leader. I held my nose because I dislike Johnson even more.
Sorry if that's not the answer you were looking for but it's an honest opinion at least. (Sorry for the length of this reply too).
1. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/20/jeremy-corb...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traingate
3 https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-jeremy-cor...
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Abbott#Political_controv...
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn#Promotion_of_cons...
You also added a few extra stories I didn’t hear before. I knew that his brother was a professional crank and the pro-Russia NATO stuff did get played pretty widely so I saw some of that in Australia, and while it looks particularly bad in hindsight now Russia started a war and ended any pretence of the legitimacy with regard to Russia-Ukraine relations since 2014 (there was at least for a while, consideration that the Crimea annexation was conducted legitimately given the cultural demographics involved, but we have all learned a lot about this since 2014), he wasn’t the only politician making that sort of statement.
The train stuff and the wreath in Tunisia were new to me though and I hadn’t heard anywhere near as much about Dianne Abbot as that wiki link provides. It’s definitely a more complete picture of someone that you could rightly have reservations about trusting. It’s hard for me to say he could have been worse than any other politician, they all say and do things to appease and entice voters and then actually do different things and provide elaborate reasonings why that was actually what people wanted all along, or completely change their minds about things once they are in power and discover that the full picture of how things are that they were not privy to while campaigning as an outsider or even while in opposition. And as someone who lives in Australia where voting is compulsory and we get this sort of dampening effect “for free”, kudos for still voting against a bad politician when many others in the UK and USA would simply not have bothered.
And thanks again for the excellent reply!