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The Morning Star 2026 Conference
Can Tory travails be turned to the left's advantage in our post-Brexit, post-Corbyn landscape?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson samples an Isle of Harris Gin as he visits a UK Food and Drinks market which has been set up in Downing Street, London

LABOUR lost the last election in England.

The Brexit drama — Labour’s capitulation to the second referendum con-trick, and the party’s consequent alienation of much of its working-class electoral base, north and south, allowed Britain’s undemocratic election system to gift a purged and repurposed Tories a seemingly impregnable 80-seat majority.

Jeremy Corbyn’s near miss in 2017 saw the steepest and most substantial rise in Labour support and produced the second highest Labour vote ever. Two years later, a 2.4 per cent Tory majority in votes saw Labour lose a fifth of its seats. In both cases the decisive shift was in England while Labour’s position in Scotland was long gone and shows little sign of renewal despite the dent Corbyn made in the SNP position in 2017.

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