The General Election was a resounding Labour loss and Conservative win. It was by far the worse loss Labour has ever seen. Many people put the loss down to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and his lack of sincerity and connection to the people.
But there is one major reason why Jeremy Corbyn lost the General Election: people love his policies, on paper, but struggle to see how he’d implement them if he was elected.
It’s not that people dislike Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, rather it’s the opposite, they love them. But most people believe that they are too good to be true, and that he won’t actually put them into place if he was made prime minister.
What are some of Jeremy Corbyn’s policies?
Free broadband for all. Free WiFi. Sounds good doesn’t it? Except no it isn’t, it would be done via nationalizing the broadband division of BT (British Telecom).
Many people worry that renationalizing a division will be more costly than Corbyn wants to admit. Corbyn admits, that buying the division off BT will not be cheap, but what he claims that the price he will be able to negotiate with BT, is markedly lower than what BT has said they will sell it for.
Many people worry that due to this, and the fact that government-owned businesses never do well, that free broadband for all, won’t in fact be free. They also worry that due to this, broadband will be more expensive with Corbyn’s new policy, than it is now.
Renationalize the railways. Many people in Britain complain about the trains. Many claim that they are some of the worst in Europe in terms of standards, and some of the worst delay times in the whole world!
The whole system boils over to the fact that private companies operate the railways in certain places. For example, Virgin Trains (owned by Richard Branson) used to operate the trains in Nottinghamshire. There is a different company for each region.
Due to this, trains that go from region to region, or even one end of the region to another, the trains don’t run particularly efficiently.
Jeremy Corbyn promised that if he had been elected during the general election, that he would’ve renationalized all the trains. He hoped that this would cause there to be no train delays, or minimize it.
But naturally, the trains were privatized in the first place due to the delays that were faced as a result of them being owned by the government. So people have little hope that this time will be any different.
Diverting more money to the NHS. The NHS is one of Jeremy Corbyn’s prized ‘British Services’. When the news broke that the Conservatives were looking to sell the NHS to Trump in exchange for a trade deal post-Brexit, Corbyn used it in his campaign against the Tories.
Jeremy Corbyn had hoped that by becoming prime minister, he could’ve diverted more money to the NHS, in order to shore up its crumbling infrastructure.
However, many people fear that this would take money away from other essential services, such as roads, schools etc. services that the country deems to be more important than the NHS as a whole.
Increasing tax on the wealthy. In order for Corbyn to divert more money to the NHS, he wants to institute a wealth tax such as the one suggested by Elizabeth Warren.
Corbyn wanted to tax the rich, based on their net worth, rather than their income. His wealth tax would’ve almost identical to that of Elizabeth Warren.
However, as always with wealth taxes, there are doubts as to its effectiveness. If the wealth tax were to be put in place, many of the UK’s richest people said that they would leave. This would obviously cause much market volatility, that would’ve caused working-class people to suffer the most!
Break up large British corporations. This is a favorite of many democratic socialists, both in the UK, and abroad: breaking up the largest corporations.
Jeremy Corbyn had hoped that by breaking up Britain’s biggest corporations, it would solve two distinct issues at the same time: ‘inequality’ and jobs.
Jeremy Corbyn is a firm believer that there has never been a period of history with as much income and wealth inequality as now. He had hoped that by breaking up the largest corporations that he’d break their ability to ‘charge prices higher than I’ve ever seen!’
But at the same time, he’d also be creating new jobs in those new companies, who would everything from low level, unskilled jobs, to highly specialized executive roles.
Many people have pointed out one glaring fault with his logic: inflation. When Corbyn says he has never seen prices this high, people say that he clearly doesn’t know what inflation is. Otherwise he’d be a lot better off.
Another Brexit vote. Brexit is the most divisive issue of our time, whether you like it or not. Corbyn is allegedly anti-Brexit, but he has also said that he wants Brexit, and he’s also said that he doesn’t care about Brexit.
Either way, in his 2019 manifesto, he said that if he was voted into Downing Street, he’d call for another referendum on EU citizenship.
Many people have criticized this, as it is technically unlawful and unconstitutional, although, many have also said that history wouldn’t see it that way. Many people have also said that it would cause Europe not to trust us, if we voted to remain, after voting to leave.
Jeremy Corbyn can’t expect all these to actually happen
A wise man once told me: “Every politician lies in an election, it’s just that you’ve got to pick which one you think is lying the most!”
Corbyn knows that not all of these are feasible, and that some of them will be more detrimental to the economy than helpful, but that’s what the problem is.
Many believe that he genuinely believes that all these policies are feasible, and there will be no backlash from the economy as a result!
Do you believe this is why Corbyn lost the election, or was there something more? Tell me in the comments!