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After a relatively quiet 2018, where Labour and the Conservatives were relatively even in the polls, the start of 2019 saw an imminent need to solve the Brexit situation once and for all, with the country scheduled to leave in March 2019 whether or not a deal was agreed (leaving without a deal was championed by those who advocated immediately slashing and burning all links with the EU, bu generally not seen as desirable). Corbyn withheld support for May's proposed deal, which naturally caused much damage to the government's reputation when it went down to a record-breaking defeat in the House of Commons -- but also Labour's, as the party was seen as obstructing democracy, and not offering a solution to an issue of grave national importance. Meanwhile, the issue of anti-Semitism within Labour began to hit critical mass, leading to several of its members resigning from the party and [[StartMyOwn forming a new party]] called Change UK, along with several Conservatives who resigned because of the party's position on leaving the EU. Combined with former UKIP veterans, alarmed at the party's embracing the Alt-Right, forming the new Brexit Party, and new Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson leading the party to their first polling leads in decades, Corbyn soon found himself in an incredibly unpredictable scenario, remaining very popular with the Labour grassroots -- and even a certain section of Brexit supporters, as many of Corbyn's proposed socialist reforms wouldn't have been possible under EU law -- but continuing to be hamstrung by relentless attacks by the press, and still being stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to Brexit.
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After a relatively quiet 2018, where Labour and the Conservatives were relatively even in the polls, the start of 2019 saw an imminent need to solve the Brexit situation once and for all, with the country scheduled to leave in March 2019 whether or not a deal was agreed (leaving without a deal was championed by those who advocated immediately slashing and burning all links with the EU, bu but generally not seen as desirable). Corbyn withheld support for May's proposed deal, which naturally caused much damage to the government's reputation when it went down to a record-breaking defeat in the House of Commons -- but also Labour's, as the party was seen as obstructing democracy, and not offering a solution to an issue of grave national importance. Meanwhile, the issue of anti-Semitism within Labour began to hit critical mass, leading to several of its members resigning from the party and [[StartMyOwn forming a new party]] called Change UK, along with several Conservatives who resigned because of the party's position on leaving the EU. Combined with former UKIP veterans, alarmed at the party's embracing the Alt-Right, forming the new Brexit Party, and new Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson leading the party to their first polling leads in decades, Corbyn soon found himself in an incredibly unpredictable scenario, remaining very popular with the Labour grassroots -- and even a certain section of Brexit supporters, as many of Corbyn's proposed socialist reforms wouldn't have been possible under EU law -- but continuing to be hamstrung by relentless attacks by the press, and still being stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to Brexit.
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The 2019 general election saw all the problems that had been building up under Corbyn's leadership finally come crashing down. Whereas the other major parties offered relatively consistent positions on the EU -- the Conservatives and Brexit Party advocated leaving, ideally with a deal, but without if absolutely necessary, while the Liberal Democrats, SNP, and Change UK were all in favour of staying in -- Labour offered what was seen as a confused position whereby they seemed to be suggesting renegotiating the deal to leave the EU, then hold a ''second'' referendum on whether to accept this deal or stay in. Additionally, their manifesto, while containing many promises seen as laudable, was criticised for focusing on these things at a time when all that anyone really cared about was Brexit, and also not seeming as well-costed and thought-out as their 2017 manifesto. Combined with the anti-Semitism allegations still remaining hot in the public consciousness, and Labour's voting base proving almost irreparably fractured, the end result was perhaps inevitable -- Labour suffered not only a worse defeat than under Miliband four years prior, but their worst defeat since ''1935'', while the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority, finally putting them in a position to (in the words of their campaign slogan) Get Brexit Done.[[note]]For their part, the Liberal Democrats lost seats -- including Swinson's, forcing her to resign -- despite increasing their popular vote share, while Change UK were completely annihilated and ceased to exist thereafter. In short, the election was an absolute, miserable failure for anyone other than the Conservatives, SNP, and Sinn Fein -- and even in the case of the latter two, mostly because of Brexit being unpopular in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.[[/note]]
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The 2019 general election saw all the problems that had been building up under Corbyn's leadership finally come crashing down. Whereas the other major parties offered relatively consistent positions on the EU -- the Conservatives and Brexit Party advocated leaving, ideally with a deal, but without if absolutely necessary, while the Liberal Democrats, SNP, and Change UK were all in favour of staying in -- Labour offered what was seen as a confused position whereby they seemed to be suggesting renegotiating the deal to leave the EU, then hold a ''second'' referendum on whether to accept this deal or stay in. Additionally, their manifesto, while containing many promises seen as laudable, was criticised for focusing on these things at a time when all that anyone really cared about was Brexit, and also not seeming as well-costed and thought-out as their 2017 manifesto. Combined with the anti-Semitism allegations still remaining hot in the public consciousness, and Labour's voting base proving almost irreparably fractured, the end result was perhaps inevitable -- Labour suffered not only a worse defeat than under Miliband four years prior, but their worst defeat since ''1935'', while the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority, finally putting them in a position to (in the words of their campaign slogan) Get Brexit Done.[[note]]For their part, the Liberal Democrats lost seats -- including Swinson's, forcing her to resign -- despite increasing their popular vote share, while Change UK were completely annihilated and ceased to exist thereafter.thereafter, the Brexit Party had what was likely a net-zero effect on the result -- splitting enough votes to throw a few Labour-held seats to the Tories, but also siphoning enough votes from people who didn't like either party to ''prevent'' the Tories taking several seats -- and what was left of UKIP could only scrape together ''0.6%'' of the votes they had earned in 2015. In short, the election was an absolute, miserable failure for anyone other than the Conservatives, SNP, and Sinn Fein -- and even in the case of the latter two, mostly because of Brexit being unpopular in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.[[/note]]
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What Corbyn might have done had he ever become Prime Minister will always remain a topic for hot debate, and it's likely that for years to come there'll be people who vilify him as the most dangerous individual ever to have come within sight of 10 Downing Street, and just as many who hail him as a potentially transformative leader who was never going to be given the chance to do what was needed. Ultimately, however, much like the three Prime Ministers he faced off during his time as Labour leader, his legacy will likely always be defined by Brexit. And for better and for worse, he will likely continue to attract more debate than any of the other opposition leaders who failed to become Prime Minister.
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What Corbyn might have done had he ever become Prime Minister will always remain a topic for hot debate, and it's likely that for years to come there'll be people who vilify him as the most dangerous individual ever to have come within sight of 10 Downing Street, and just as many who hail him as a potentially transformative leader who was never going to be given the chance to do what was needed. Ultimately, however, much like the three Prime Ministers he faced off during his time as Labour leader, his legacy will likely always be defined by Brexit. And for better and for worse, he will likely continue to attract more debate than any of the other UK opposition leaders who failed to become Prime Minister.
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Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (born 26 May 1949) is a British politician, MP for the London seat of Islington North since 1983, and Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the UK Opposition between 2015 and 2020.
Even in an era which saw him go up against the likes of UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, and UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson in the Prime Minister's chair, Corbyn's tenure as party leader split opinion to a ''huge'' degree, and still does to this day. Depending on who you ask, he was either a well-loved visionary leader who was prevented from achieving much-needed social reform by vested interests in the UK's media and business sectors, a dangerous radical who would have brought the country to ruination had he ever become Prime Minister, or just someone who, whatever his strengths and weaknesses as a leader, would have been overtaken by events and doomed regardless (and even ''these'' only begin to scratch the surface of opinions on his leadership).
Much like fellow Labour leaders UsefulNotes/TonyBlair and UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Corbyn was first elected as an MP in the 1983 general election. Unlike Blair and Brown, who were both ambitious modernisers, Corbyn was a more traditional socialist in the mould of outgoing leader Michael Foot (who resigned after presiding over the crushing defeat in 1983), and spent most of his first three decades as an MP on the backbenches. During the reign of Foot's successor, Neil Kinnock, Corbyn remained broadly aligned with the party on most issues, but made something of a name for himself for his protests against Apartheid and vocal support of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike, along with advocating for a United Ireland.
During Blair's (and later Brown's) tenture as Prime Minister, Corbyn was the Labour MP who most consistently voted against their policies, in particular being an opponent of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. After Brown's government was defeated in the 2010 general election, Corbyn started to take a slightly more active role under new Labour leader Ed Milliband, not being given a position in the shadow cabinet, but sitting on various select committees until the 2015 general election.
While the 2015 election was predicted by many to see Labour return to power, they not only failed to do so, but in fact went down to their worst defeat in 28 years, with the only thing preventing an even more resounding loss being that the (temporarily) rising UK Independence Party's 13% of the vote only won them ''one'' MP. In the immediate aftermath of the election, many political journalists believed[[note]]In retrospect, almost certainly incorrectly, given what would unfold over the following year[[/note]] that Miliband's leadership had ultimately failed because he -- along with his committing a series of high-profile PR blunders -- positioned himself on the left of the party, but took positions as leader that didn't really appeal to either side. The ensuing leadership contest saw two entrants, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, who were seen as representing continuity with the Blair/Brown era, along with a third entrant, Liz Kendall, who wanted to move the party further to the right. Several Labour [=MPs=], despite not really supporting Corbyn, gave him the nominations to take part in the leadership contest -- much as they had done with his long-time ally, Diane Abbott, five years earlier -- so as to offer more choice to the membership. By their own admission, this [[GoneHorriblyRight went horribly right]], as Corbyn absolutely trounced the other three competitors, winning with 60% of the votes in what was seen as the party grassroots demanding a change from the Blair-era consensus and a move towards true socialism.[[note]]Some ascribed his win to Milliband's changing the party's leadership from a complicated electoral college to a simple one-member-one-vote system. However, subsequent analysis showed that this made only a minimal impact, and that Corbyn would have still won, though probably less decisively, under the old system.[[/note]]
From the very start, however, parts of the UK media had a more sinister motive for wanting Corbyn to become leader. With the centrist Liberal Democrats -- who had been Cameron's coalition partners -- being virtually wiped out in the 2015 election, the Scottish National Party having captured virtually every seat north of the border, and UKIP seemingly on the rise, their hope was that Corbyn would steer the Labour Party to such a disastrous defeat that it would effectively eliminate the left as a serious political force in the UK, leaving the choices between the more moderately right-wing party that the Conservatives had evolved into under Cameron, and the much more overtly right-wing UKIP.
For the most part, Corbyn's first year as Labour leader saw him act as more of a cultural phenomenon than achieving anything of any real political note, vilified in the press to a degree that even Foot had never been,[[note]]In particular, they pointed out Corbyn's past attempts to hold dialogues with the IRA and Hamas; for his part, Corbyn himself pointed out that a military solution had not achieved anything with regard to UsefulNotes/TheTroubles or the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and that negotiated peace could only be achieved by opening up a true dialogue and trying to understand all the parties involved.[[/note]] and yet attracting adoring crowds and a passionate grassroots in a way that very few UK party leaders ever have. Politically, his first year was largely unremarkable, with Labour retaining four seats in by-elections by increased majorities[[note]]UKIP actually increased their vote share in most of the by-elections, but Labour increased theirs by more, primarily at the expense of the Conservatives[[/note]], and doing respectably well in the 2016 local elections.
Then, a month after the local elections, the UK voted by a 52%-48% margin to leave UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Corbyn came in for a lot of flack in the immediate aftermath of this seismic political shock, with some accusing him of having an unclear position and having campaigned diffidently to stay in the EU, even to the point of outright blaming him for the result. This was largely in part responsible for a leadership challenge a few months later, though with his rivals only able to put up the relatively obscure Owen Smith as a candidate, Corbyn won even more resoundingly at the second time of asking. The issue of Brexit would dominate the remainder of Corbyn's time as leader; in retrospect, some argue that the referendum result was the exact moment that his leadership became doomed to failure (as would have been any of his 2015 or 2016 leadership rivals had they defeated him) in the longer run, given that while the referendum result was a close-run thing in the popular vote, in terms of parliamentary constituencies it was actually a landslide win for Brexit -- with many traditionally Labour-voting working-class seats voting by massive majorities to leave the EU, and more socially liberal urban areas voting by almost as large margins to stay in it, leaving Labour and Corbyn with a seemingly (and many would argue, actually) impossible balancing act.
Cameron resigned in the aftermath of the referendum result, and was replaced by Theresa May, who enjoyed huge popularity in her honeymoon period, earning support from Brexit supporters for her promise to implement the result, and also more moderate voters for rejecting some of the more extreme positions espoused by UKIP and members on the right of her party. Meanwhile, Labour's fortunes begin to decline, as the party took heavy heat in the press for not backing Brexit -- despite the fact that the Conservatives had ''also'' opposed it in the run-up to the referendum -- and reports began to emerge of anti-Semitic behavior in the party, which it was alleged that Corbyn was ineffectual at dealing with. The Conservatives soon gained a huge polling lead, and this was reflected in their taking the previously safe Labour seat of Copeland in a by-election,[[note]]In fact, in one of the more damaging statistics for Corbyn's leadership, the party did not take a single seat from the government in any by-election during his time as opposition leader. The only other post-war opposition leader to hold this statistic is John Smith, who only lead Labour for a little under two years prior to his untimely death, during which UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's government ''did'' lose three by-elections, but to the Liberal Democrats[[/note]] as well as absolutely massacring Labour at the 2017 local elections.
Keen to win a larger parliamentary majority than the slender one she had inherited from Cameron -- which had already been reduced by one after a loss to the Liberal Democrats in a by-election -- May called an early general election for June 2017. And while many predicted that this election would see Corbyn lead Labour to total disaster, it in fact proved his finest hour as leader. The Conservatives offered a manifesto that was accused of being light on any real substance while targeting the elderly with the so-called "dementia tax", while Labour's manifesto was commended for offering what was seen as a sensible and feasible implementation of more left-wing policies than typically seen in modern British politics. More importantly, Corbyn proved effective on the campaign trail, while May made few public appearances, and seemed awkward and uncomfortable when she did. In a shock result, Labour overcame dire polling to deprive May's government of its majority, forcing her into a confidence-and-supply arrangement with the Northern Ireland-based Democratic Unionist Party, and leaving the possibility of an eventual Corbyn-lead government looking feasible after all -- any threat that UKIP may have posed, meanwhile, evaporated when the party lost 80% of its vote from two years prior, leading to them rapidly falling away into obscurity.
After a relatively quiet 2018, where Labour and the Conservatives were relatively even in the polls, the start of 2019 saw an imminent need to solve the Brexit situation once and for all, with the country scheduled to leave in March 2019 whether or not a deal was agreed (leaving without a deal was championed by those who advocated immediately slashing and burning all links with the EU, bu generally not seen as desirable). Corbyn withheld support for May's proposed deal, which naturally caused much damage to the government's reputation when it went down to a record-breaking defeat in the House of Commons -- but also Labour's, as the party was seen as obstructing democracy, and not offering a solution to an issue of grave national importance. Meanwhile, the issue of anti-Semitism within Labour began to hit critical mass, leading to several of its members resigning from the party and [[StartMyOwn forming a new party]] called Change UK, along with several Conservatives who resigned because of the party's position on leaving the EU. Combined with former UKIP veterans, alarmed at the party's embracing the Alt-Right, forming the new Brexit Party, and new Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson leading the party to their first polling leads in decades, Corbyn soon found himself in an incredibly unpredictable scenario, remaining very popular with the Labour grassroots -- and even a certain section of Brexit supporters, as many of Corbyn's proposed socialist reforms wouldn't have been possible under EU law -- but continuing to be hamstrung by relentless attacks by the press, and still being stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to Brexit.
A dismal set of local elections results[[note]]Which was actually pretty poor for Labour as well, but not to ''nearly'' the same extent[[/note]] and an even worse European Parliament election result saw May finally throw in the towel. Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in July, and this would ultimately prove the beginning of the end for Corbyn. The unpredictable, volatile political situation that had taken up the first half of the year was quickly transformed into another overwhelming Conservative lead, and unlike May's honeymoon, Johnson's lead was very much ''not'' built on a foundation of sand, as he successfully painted the rival parties as being obstructionist and blamed them for their failure to get Brexit across the line -- Corbyn's (and Swinson's) attempts to point out that May threw away the majority that she inherited from Cameron, and that her Brexit bill wouldn't have earned enough votes to pass even ''with'' Cameron's majority, were naturally ignored by the heavily Brexit-favouring press -- and ultimately called another general election for that December.
The 2019 general election saw all the problems that had been building up under Corbyn's leadership finally come crashing down. Whereas the other major parties offered relatively consistent positions on the EU -- the Conservatives and Brexit Party advocated leaving, ideally with a deal, but without if absolutely necessary, while the Liberal Democrats, SNP, and Change UK were all in favour of staying in -- Labour offered what was seen as a confused position whereby they seemed to be suggesting renegotiating the deal to leave the EU, then hold a ''second'' referendum on whether to accept this deal or stay in. Additionally, their manifesto, while containing many promises seen as laudable, was criticised for focusing on these things at a time when all that anyone really cared about was Brexit, and also not seeming as well-costed and thought-out as their 2017 manifesto. Combined with the anti-Semitism allegations still remaining hot in the public consciousness, and Labour's voting base proving almost irreparably fractured, the end result was perhaps inevitable -- Labour suffered not only a worse defeat than under Miliband four years prior, but their worst defeat since ''1935'', while the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority, finally putting them in a position to (in the words of their campaign slogan) Get Brexit Done.[[note]]For their part, the Liberal Democrats lost seats -- including Swinson's, forcing her to resign -- despite increasing their popular vote share, while Change UK were completely annihilated and ceased to exist thereafter. In short, the election was an absolute, miserable failure for anyone other than the Conservatives, SNP, and Sinn Fein -- and even in the case of the latter two, mostly because of Brexit being unpopular in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.[[/note]]
In the eyes of the Conservatives' supporters in the press, Corbyn had finally done what he was supposed to and lead Labour into a possibly permanent electoral wilderness, with the early days of 2020 being replete with much UnsportsmanlikeGloating about how by trying to deliver a more socialist society, Corbyn had inversely set Johnson up to do the exact opposite by putting the UK's public institutions to the sword and turning the country into a pure free-market economy that the press nicknamed "Singapore-on-Thames" -- though if Johnson ever did have any intention of delivering such a thing (which is highly debatable), it was ultimately derailed by the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. Ironically, many have noted in the years since that Corbyn might have done more in defeat to doom Johnson and the Conservatives in the longer haul than he would have by winning or holding them to another minority government, as the series of scandals that resulted in Johnson's government self-destructing by mid-2022 was blamed by many on the size of the party's 2019 victory causing them to become complacent and believe that Brexit would deliver them an unbeatable electoral alliance.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2019 election, Corbyn announced his intention to resign. He backed Rebecca Long-Bailey as his successor, but a combination of her running what was seen as a lackluster campaign and the party grassroots once again feeling a change of direction was needed resulted in her losing to Keir Starmer -- ironically the chief architect of the Brexit strategy that was blamed largely in part for the party's catastrophic election defeat. Starmer would later suspend Corbyn's membership of the party in October 2020 after Corbyn publicly claimed that the extent of anti-Semitism in the party was being exaggerated by its political and press enemies... [[PoorCommunicationKills right as Starmer was giving a speech about how it was anti-Semitic to claim that the party's issues in this regard were being exaggerated by the press]]. Unlike certain other former Labour politicians such as George Galloway, Corbyn has stopped short of advocating that Israel be dismantled and its land returned to Palestine (as Labour leader he advocated the "two-state solution", and has never publicly rescinded that position), though he generated controversy in 2023 when he refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, causing Starmer to firmly close the door on his ever running as a Labour candidate again.
Corbyn still sits as an independent MP for his constituency -- speculation abounded as to whether he would run as a deliberate spoiler candidate in the 2024 London Mayoral election in order to throw the election to the Tories, but he ultimately did not do so, and has not yet publicly stated whether he intends to run to retain his parliamentary seat as an independent.
What Corbyn might have done had he ever become Prime Minister will always remain a topic for hot debate, and it's likely that for years to come there'll be people who vilify him as the most dangerous individual ever to have come within sight of 10 Downing Street, and just as many who hail him as a potentially transformative leader who was never going to be given the chance to do what was needed. Ultimately, however, much like the three Prime Ministers he faced off during his time as Labour leader, his legacy will likely always be defined by Brexit. And for better and for worse, he will likely continue to attract more debate than any of the other opposition leaders who failed to become Prime Minister.
----
Even in an era which saw him go up against the likes of UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, and UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson in the Prime Minister's chair, Corbyn's tenure as party leader split opinion to a ''huge'' degree, and still does to this day. Depending on who you ask, he was either a well-loved visionary leader who was prevented from achieving much-needed social reform by vested interests in the UK's media and business sectors, a dangerous radical who would have brought the country to ruination had he ever become Prime Minister, or just someone who, whatever his strengths and weaknesses as a leader, would have been overtaken by events and doomed regardless (and even ''these'' only begin to scratch the surface of opinions on his leadership).
Much like fellow Labour leaders UsefulNotes/TonyBlair and UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Corbyn was first elected as an MP in the 1983 general election. Unlike Blair and Brown, who were both ambitious modernisers, Corbyn was a more traditional socialist in the mould of outgoing leader Michael Foot (who resigned after presiding over the crushing defeat in 1983), and spent most of his first three decades as an MP on the backbenches. During the reign of Foot's successor, Neil Kinnock, Corbyn remained broadly aligned with the party on most issues, but made something of a name for himself for his protests against Apartheid and vocal support of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike, along with advocating for a United Ireland.
During Blair's (and later Brown's) tenture as Prime Minister, Corbyn was the Labour MP who most consistently voted against their policies, in particular being an opponent of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. After Brown's government was defeated in the 2010 general election, Corbyn started to take a slightly more active role under new Labour leader Ed Milliband, not being given a position in the shadow cabinet, but sitting on various select committees until the 2015 general election.
While the 2015 election was predicted by many to see Labour return to power, they not only failed to do so, but in fact went down to their worst defeat in 28 years, with the only thing preventing an even more resounding loss being that the (temporarily) rising UK Independence Party's 13% of the vote only won them ''one'' MP. In the immediate aftermath of the election, many political journalists believed[[note]]In retrospect, almost certainly incorrectly, given what would unfold over the following year[[/note]] that Miliband's leadership had ultimately failed because he -- along with his committing a series of high-profile PR blunders -- positioned himself on the left of the party, but took positions as leader that didn't really appeal to either side. The ensuing leadership contest saw two entrants, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, who were seen as representing continuity with the Blair/Brown era, along with a third entrant, Liz Kendall, who wanted to move the party further to the right. Several Labour [=MPs=], despite not really supporting Corbyn, gave him the nominations to take part in the leadership contest -- much as they had done with his long-time ally, Diane Abbott, five years earlier -- so as to offer more choice to the membership. By their own admission, this [[GoneHorriblyRight went horribly right]], as Corbyn absolutely trounced the other three competitors, winning with 60% of the votes in what was seen as the party grassroots demanding a change from the Blair-era consensus and a move towards true socialism.[[note]]Some ascribed his win to Milliband's changing the party's leadership from a complicated electoral college to a simple one-member-one-vote system. However, subsequent analysis showed that this made only a minimal impact, and that Corbyn would have still won, though probably less decisively, under the old system.[[/note]]
From the very start, however, parts of the UK media had a more sinister motive for wanting Corbyn to become leader. With the centrist Liberal Democrats -- who had been Cameron's coalition partners -- being virtually wiped out in the 2015 election, the Scottish National Party having captured virtually every seat north of the border, and UKIP seemingly on the rise, their hope was that Corbyn would steer the Labour Party to such a disastrous defeat that it would effectively eliminate the left as a serious political force in the UK, leaving the choices between the more moderately right-wing party that the Conservatives had evolved into under Cameron, and the much more overtly right-wing UKIP.
For the most part, Corbyn's first year as Labour leader saw him act as more of a cultural phenomenon than achieving anything of any real political note, vilified in the press to a degree that even Foot had never been,[[note]]In particular, they pointed out Corbyn's past attempts to hold dialogues with the IRA and Hamas; for his part, Corbyn himself pointed out that a military solution had not achieved anything with regard to UsefulNotes/TheTroubles or the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and that negotiated peace could only be achieved by opening up a true dialogue and trying to understand all the parties involved.[[/note]] and yet attracting adoring crowds and a passionate grassroots in a way that very few UK party leaders ever have. Politically, his first year was largely unremarkable, with Labour retaining four seats in by-elections by increased majorities[[note]]UKIP actually increased their vote share in most of the by-elections, but Labour increased theirs by more, primarily at the expense of the Conservatives[[/note]], and doing respectably well in the 2016 local elections.
Then, a month after the local elections, the UK voted by a 52%-48% margin to leave UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion. Corbyn came in for a lot of flack in the immediate aftermath of this seismic political shock, with some accusing him of having an unclear position and having campaigned diffidently to stay in the EU, even to the point of outright blaming him for the result. This was largely in part responsible for a leadership challenge a few months later, though with his rivals only able to put up the relatively obscure Owen Smith as a candidate, Corbyn won even more resoundingly at the second time of asking. The issue of Brexit would dominate the remainder of Corbyn's time as leader; in retrospect, some argue that the referendum result was the exact moment that his leadership became doomed to failure (as would have been any of his 2015 or 2016 leadership rivals had they defeated him) in the longer run, given that while the referendum result was a close-run thing in the popular vote, in terms of parliamentary constituencies it was actually a landslide win for Brexit -- with many traditionally Labour-voting working-class seats voting by massive majorities to leave the EU, and more socially liberal urban areas voting by almost as large margins to stay in it, leaving Labour and Corbyn with a seemingly (and many would argue, actually) impossible balancing act.
Cameron resigned in the aftermath of the referendum result, and was replaced by Theresa May, who enjoyed huge popularity in her honeymoon period, earning support from Brexit supporters for her promise to implement the result, and also more moderate voters for rejecting some of the more extreme positions espoused by UKIP and members on the right of her party. Meanwhile, Labour's fortunes begin to decline, as the party took heavy heat in the press for not backing Brexit -- despite the fact that the Conservatives had ''also'' opposed it in the run-up to the referendum -- and reports began to emerge of anti-Semitic behavior in the party, which it was alleged that Corbyn was ineffectual at dealing with. The Conservatives soon gained a huge polling lead, and this was reflected in their taking the previously safe Labour seat of Copeland in a by-election,[[note]]In fact, in one of the more damaging statistics for Corbyn's leadership, the party did not take a single seat from the government in any by-election during his time as opposition leader. The only other post-war opposition leader to hold this statistic is John Smith, who only lead Labour for a little under two years prior to his untimely death, during which UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's government ''did'' lose three by-elections, but to the Liberal Democrats[[/note]] as well as absolutely massacring Labour at the 2017 local elections.
Keen to win a larger parliamentary majority than the slender one she had inherited from Cameron -- which had already been reduced by one after a loss to the Liberal Democrats in a by-election -- May called an early general election for June 2017. And while many predicted that this election would see Corbyn lead Labour to total disaster, it in fact proved his finest hour as leader. The Conservatives offered a manifesto that was accused of being light on any real substance while targeting the elderly with the so-called "dementia tax", while Labour's manifesto was commended for offering what was seen as a sensible and feasible implementation of more left-wing policies than typically seen in modern British politics. More importantly, Corbyn proved effective on the campaign trail, while May made few public appearances, and seemed awkward and uncomfortable when she did. In a shock result, Labour overcame dire polling to deprive May's government of its majority, forcing her into a confidence-and-supply arrangement with the Northern Ireland-based Democratic Unionist Party, and leaving the possibility of an eventual Corbyn-lead government looking feasible after all -- any threat that UKIP may have posed, meanwhile, evaporated when the party lost 80% of its vote from two years prior, leading to them rapidly falling away into obscurity.
After a relatively quiet 2018, where Labour and the Conservatives were relatively even in the polls, the start of 2019 saw an imminent need to solve the Brexit situation once and for all, with the country scheduled to leave in March 2019 whether or not a deal was agreed (leaving without a deal was championed by those who advocated immediately slashing and burning all links with the EU, bu generally not seen as desirable). Corbyn withheld support for May's proposed deal, which naturally caused much damage to the government's reputation when it went down to a record-breaking defeat in the House of Commons -- but also Labour's, as the party was seen as obstructing democracy, and not offering a solution to an issue of grave national importance. Meanwhile, the issue of anti-Semitism within Labour began to hit critical mass, leading to several of its members resigning from the party and [[StartMyOwn forming a new party]] called Change UK, along with several Conservatives who resigned because of the party's position on leaving the EU. Combined with former UKIP veterans, alarmed at the party's embracing the Alt-Right, forming the new Brexit Party, and new Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson leading the party to their first polling leads in decades, Corbyn soon found himself in an incredibly unpredictable scenario, remaining very popular with the Labour grassroots -- and even a certain section of Brexit supporters, as many of Corbyn's proposed socialist reforms wouldn't have been possible under EU law -- but continuing to be hamstrung by relentless attacks by the press, and still being stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to Brexit.
A dismal set of local elections results[[note]]Which was actually pretty poor for Labour as well, but not to ''nearly'' the same extent[[/note]] and an even worse European Parliament election result saw May finally throw in the towel. Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in July, and this would ultimately prove the beginning of the end for Corbyn. The unpredictable, volatile political situation that had taken up the first half of the year was quickly transformed into another overwhelming Conservative lead, and unlike May's honeymoon, Johnson's lead was very much ''not'' built on a foundation of sand, as he successfully painted the rival parties as being obstructionist and blamed them for their failure to get Brexit across the line -- Corbyn's (and Swinson's) attempts to point out that May threw away the majority that she inherited from Cameron, and that her Brexit bill wouldn't have earned enough votes to pass even ''with'' Cameron's majority, were naturally ignored by the heavily Brexit-favouring press -- and ultimately called another general election for that December.
The 2019 general election saw all the problems that had been building up under Corbyn's leadership finally come crashing down. Whereas the other major parties offered relatively consistent positions on the EU -- the Conservatives and Brexit Party advocated leaving, ideally with a deal, but without if absolutely necessary, while the Liberal Democrats, SNP, and Change UK were all in favour of staying in -- Labour offered what was seen as a confused position whereby they seemed to be suggesting renegotiating the deal to leave the EU, then hold a ''second'' referendum on whether to accept this deal or stay in. Additionally, their manifesto, while containing many promises seen as laudable, was criticised for focusing on these things at a time when all that anyone really cared about was Brexit, and also not seeming as well-costed and thought-out as their 2017 manifesto. Combined with the anti-Semitism allegations still remaining hot in the public consciousness, and Labour's voting base proving almost irreparably fractured, the end result was perhaps inevitable -- Labour suffered not only a worse defeat than under Miliband four years prior, but their worst defeat since ''1935'', while the Conservatives won an 80-seat majority, finally putting them in a position to (in the words of their campaign slogan) Get Brexit Done.[[note]]For their part, the Liberal Democrats lost seats -- including Swinson's, forcing her to resign -- despite increasing their popular vote share, while Change UK were completely annihilated and ceased to exist thereafter. In short, the election was an absolute, miserable failure for anyone other than the Conservatives, SNP, and Sinn Fein -- and even in the case of the latter two, mostly because of Brexit being unpopular in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.[[/note]]
In the eyes of the Conservatives' supporters in the press, Corbyn had finally done what he was supposed to and lead Labour into a possibly permanent electoral wilderness, with the early days of 2020 being replete with much UnsportsmanlikeGloating about how by trying to deliver a more socialist society, Corbyn had inversely set Johnson up to do the exact opposite by putting the UK's public institutions to the sword and turning the country into a pure free-market economy that the press nicknamed "Singapore-on-Thames" -- though if Johnson ever did have any intention of delivering such a thing (which is highly debatable), it was ultimately derailed by the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. Ironically, many have noted in the years since that Corbyn might have done more in defeat to doom Johnson and the Conservatives in the longer haul than he would have by winning or holding them to another minority government, as the series of scandals that resulted in Johnson's government self-destructing by mid-2022 was blamed by many on the size of the party's 2019 victory causing them to become complacent and believe that Brexit would deliver them an unbeatable electoral alliance.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2019 election, Corbyn announced his intention to resign. He backed Rebecca Long-Bailey as his successor, but a combination of her running what was seen as a lackluster campaign and the party grassroots once again feeling a change of direction was needed resulted in her losing to Keir Starmer -- ironically the chief architect of the Brexit strategy that was blamed largely in part for the party's catastrophic election defeat. Starmer would later suspend Corbyn's membership of the party in October 2020 after Corbyn publicly claimed that the extent of anti-Semitism in the party was being exaggerated by its political and press enemies... [[PoorCommunicationKills right as Starmer was giving a speech about how it was anti-Semitic to claim that the party's issues in this regard were being exaggerated by the press]]. Unlike certain other former Labour politicians such as George Galloway, Corbyn has stopped short of advocating that Israel be dismantled and its land returned to Palestine (as Labour leader he advocated the "two-state solution", and has never publicly rescinded that position), though he generated controversy in 2023 when he refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, causing Starmer to firmly close the door on his ever running as a Labour candidate again.
Corbyn still sits as an independent MP for his constituency -- speculation abounded as to whether he would run as a deliberate spoiler candidate in the 2024 London Mayoral election in order to throw the election to the Tories, but he ultimately did not do so, and has not yet publicly stated whether he intends to run to retain his parliamentary seat as an independent.
What Corbyn might have done had he ever become Prime Minister will always remain a topic for hot debate, and it's likely that for years to come there'll be people who vilify him as the most dangerous individual ever to have come within sight of 10 Downing Street, and just as many who hail him as a potentially transformative leader who was never going to be given the chance to do what was needed. Ultimately, however, much like the three Prime Ministers he faced off during his time as Labour leader, his legacy will likely always be defined by Brexit. And for better and for worse, he will likely continue to attract more debate than any of the other opposition leaders who failed to become Prime Minister.
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