Wednesday 1 April 2020

HISTORY OF A LOSER: CORBYN 2017

Part three.  It's 2017 and having seen off Owen Smith's leadership challenge Corbyn has a renewed mandate.  His leadership 'relaunch' is a disaster and Labour are hammered in the local elections.  When Theresa May calls a snap general election the Tories are expected to romp to victory, but it backfires spectacularly and their majority is lost.  Labour celebrate like they've won the election and Corbyn is saved.  Despite Labour's pro-Leave election pledge, Remainers begin to plot the downfall of Brexit.

09.01.17 - Corbyn's friend Martin McGuinness resigns from Stormont over a somewhat innocuous scandal (by comparison to the 1,800 murders his organisation carried out)


10.01.17 - Corbyn conducts a leadership 'relaunch' in a blaze of publicity.  In a BBC interview he confirms his views on mass immigration haven't changed.  The 'relaunch' is widely ridiculed.



11.01.17


18.01.17


26.01.17


02.02.17 - As MPs vote on the triggering of Article 50, Corbyn's close ally goes home 'sick' just prior to the vote.  The bill passes, but 47 Labour MPs defy a three-line whip and vote to block it.


09.02.17 - Clive Lewis resigns from the front bench amid rumours that he is plotting a leadership challenge, supported by none other than The Guardian's Owen Jones





12.02.17 - Corbyn campaigns in the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election.  Labour's candidate Gareth Snell is revealed to have made several misogynist tweets, but holds off a challenge from UKIP, although the party's majority is cut in half.




12.02.17 - Persistent reshuffles became a running joke under Corbyn's early years


13.02.17


20.02.17 - Labour campaign to stop President Trump from visiting the UK, an hypocrisy ridiculed by Bob Moran in this Telegraph cartoon



25.02.17 - Labour suffer a humiliating defeat to the Tories in the Copeland by-election, a seat that had been held by Labour since 1935



28.02.17


06.03.17 - Billy Bragg


21.03.17 - Martin McGuinness dies


02.04.17


03.04.17 - Action figure (can perform 180 degree u-turn)


17.04.17



20.04.17


18.04.17 - Theresa May calls a surprise snap election


22.04.17


26.04.17


01.05.17 - Gareth didn't expect to be hitting the campaign trail again so soon


02.05.17



04.05.17 - The Conservatives wipe the floor with Labour in the local elections.  The Tories gain 11 local authorities and 563 council seats, while Labour lose seven councils and 382 council seats, including three local authorities in the Labour heartland of South Wales.  The party also struggles in the inaugural mayoral elections in England, winning only two from six.  Corbyn tries desperately to spin the results.




11.05.17 - Labour launch their general election manifesto


13.05.17


14.05.17 - Corbyn's car hits a cameraman (and yes, unfortunately it was a BBC cameraman Jez)


21.05.17


22.05.17 - Corbyn's 'kinder, gentler' message often fell on deaf ears among his supporters


23.05.17 - Several Islamist terror attacks in the run-up to the general election are (sort of) condemned by Corbyn, although he insists foreign policy was ultimately to blame



02.06.17 - Anti-Semitism isn't a huge issue at this point, but it's hasn't gone unnoticed


05.06.17


08.06.17 - Our election day post on Facebook, part of which was later adapted into our Facebook wallpaper


09.06.17 - The general election is a disaster for Theresa May as the Tory majority is wiped out by a surprise Labour surge.  However, she maintains a slim grip on power after talks with the Democratic Unionist Party.  Labour claim a victory of sorts, despite finishing 55 seats behind the Tories.  Some younger Labour supporters are left confused about the result by a combination of negative news coverage and the celebratory response from the party itself.




17.06.17 - Corbynistas would spend the next two and a half years crowing about Corbyn's 'victory' in a bizarre denial of reality.  This comparison between 1997 and 2017 shows the stark contrast between victory and defeat.


30.06.17 - Yet another reshuffle



02.07.17


25.07.17 - Labour had campaigned on a manifesto that "respects the referendum result", but Remainers were resurgent.  Labour's Brexit policy was to change almost weekly, leading to more ridicule.


05.08.17 - The Islington one returns from a journey to the 'true north' (this is a Game of Thrones reference)


13.08.17 - Corbyn and his allies refuse to condemn Maduro's disastrous Venezuelan regime


19.08.17


22.08.17 - Corbyn had been worshipped at the Glastonbury Festival earlier in the summer.  The BBC joined in the adoration in a tweet that was later deleted.


29.08.17 - Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale resigns suddenly and unexpectedly, leading to suggestions she was forced out having supported the 2016 leadership challenge to Corbyn.  She was later replaced with Corbyn loyalist Richard Leonard.


03.09.17 - Labour's Brexit policy merry-go-round continues.  Sir Keir Starmer says these are not u-turns, but "developments"


14.09.17


27.09.17 - Theresa May would not be remembered as a great Prime Minister, but she consistently outpolled Corbyn when it came to best person for the job


07.11.17


29.11.17


03.12.17 - Labour are rallying the anti-Trump movement again.  Meanwhile, actual walls and barriers are going up around Christmas markets, on bridges and in high streets to prevent Islamist attacks in the UK


13.12.17


19.12.17 - Our Christmas 2017 Facebook wallpaper


23.12.17


TOMORROW:  2018, the rise of Labour anti-Semitism and the Remainer war against Corbyn