Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the party would have secured a victory in the 2017 general election if it had not been for a leadership challenge against him the previous year.
In an interview with The Benn Society on Friday, the Islington MP said that the attempt to remove him from office cost Labour victory in the 2017 election, which it narrowly lost.
“We went into the general election in 2017 when they’d all written us off, and were astonished at how close we got to winning”, Mr Corbyn said.
“We were within a whisker of winning that general election, and had the party been more united than we had been in 2016, I’m absolutely confident we could have won that general election, because it was all absolutely going our way and our manifesto was very much in tune with the way people were feeling".
Jeremy Corbyn faced a leadership challenge from the right of his party following the Brexit result in 2016.
Following series of front bench resignations, Corbyn saw his leadership contested by Owen Smith, however Corbyn managed to see off the challenge, winning 61.8% of the vote
He went on the narrowly lose the snap general election in 2017 but increased the Labour Party's vote and took away the Conservative Party's majority in parliament.
In the interview with The Benn Society, Corbyn identified Brexit divisions and "personal abuse" against front bench staff by the media for the second defeat in 2019, which saw Boris Johnson's Conservatives secure an 80-seat majority.
"We lost the general election, and I'm acutely aware of that, and the consequences of that", he said
"We didn't lose it on the policies we put forward, we lost it on perceptions over Brexit, and perceptions over the future. I do think the arguments for socialism are as strong now as ever".
He stressed that he believed Labour's election pledges had been "vindicated", pointing to the large shift in government spending by the Conservatives amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"All of this I was condemned for wanting to do during the general election, and then three months later the coronavirus crisis has forced the government to spend a great deal of money", he said.
Despite his resignation as leader and the defeat of Corbynite candidates in the subsequent leadership race, he said that he hopes that Starmer will continue the "anti-austerity" policies he promoted and helped shift the Labour Party to the left.
He promised to continue to push for the party to "maintain a socialist economic policy" as a back bench MP.
Corbyn previously claimed that he "won the argument", despite the election defeat, citing the popularity of his policies.
Polling has consistently confirmed that there a majority supports bringing key industries into public ownership, which was a platform pushed by the Labour Party since 2015.
A YouGov poll discovered that popular opinion favours nationalised railways, water companies, buses, energy companies, the Royal Mail and the health service. Support for a publicly owned broadband network also increased after it was included in Labour Party's 2019 manifesto.
