There’s an interesting pattern of dialogue that is provoked on Twitter whenever the subject of the 2019 general election is raised. 

Those of us who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in order to prevent the election of a Jeremy Corbyn-led government are frequently challenged, post-Partygate, to renounce our sins, invited to concede that a government led by the veteran Left-winger, however disastrous, would still have been preferable to the current one led by Boris Johnson.

I beg to differ. As if the politics gods are always on the lookout for a way to remind us of our past decisions, we now have the Ukrainian crisis and an opportunity to consider, once again, the political instincts and loyalties of the man elected twice as  leader of the Labour Party.

It might be appropriate to remind ourselves that, following Labour’s unexpectedly vigorous performance at the 2017 general election – coming second, more than 50 seats behind the Conservatives, counted as a win in the Labour Party back then – Corbyn seemed to be on the front foot, with his party regularly ahead in the polls. 

Until Salisbury.

Apparently unable to bring himself to believe that Russia had deliberately launched a chemical attack against British residents, killing at least one British citizen in the process, Corbyn holed his already fragile leadership below the waterline. Why not send a sample of the deadly toxin used in the attempt to assassinate a former KGB agent to the Kremlin, suggested Corbyn to an astonished Commons, so that they could tell us whether it was theirs or not?

There was much in subsequent months that led to Labour’s election defeat and Corbyn’s dispatch as leader. But you can easily trace his fall from the dizzy heights of Glastonbury celebrity to naïve (or duplicitous) Kremlin patsy to that moment in 2018.

But for all Corbyn’s faults, he is consistent. On several occasions now, he has publicly appeared to sympathise with the interpretations of Putin’s Russia. Everything is Nato’s fault, he and his fellow-travellers on the hard-Left endlessly seem to think. How can poor Russia be blamed for annexing part of Ukraine in 2014 and for its attacks this week when the big, bad military alliance is expanding ever eastwards?

He was at it again yesterday in the Commons, suggesting that “longer term, secure peace in the region” might be achieved if Nato reduced its presence in the region. This is a textbook tactic for appeasing hostile forces. 

So now would be as good a time as any to revisit the choice of prime minister presented to the British public in December 2019. Labour under Keir Starmer is in a difficult position since it cannot, with any sincerity or credibility, pretend that it wishes Corbyn had won that contest. Previous Labour oppositions have been able to claim, following every election defeat, that things would have been far better had the public made a different choice last time round. That is not a tactic available to Starmer’s front bench.

So consider that scenario: a UK government, probably a “rainbow” coalition with all the chaos and stupidity such a phrase conjures up, led by a man who opposes the military alliance on which his own country’s security is based. Imagine that day in parliament, when the prime minister’s bike arrives and he steps off it, removes the straps securing his red box and heads into the building, preparing for his statement.

“Both sides are at fault,” he might intone, perhaps reading out an email he had received from Brenda in Norwich, affirming her desire to see peace talks without preconditions. “I oppose all forms of war,” he might have told MPs. But some more than others, he would have been careful not to add.

Now, there are no doubt those of Boris Johnson’s critics who regard the above scenario as preferable to, or at least the equivalence of, a couple of legally dubious parties in the Downing Street garden. As the scale of Russian aggression and anti-democratic actions become more apparent, however, Britons should be careful. December 2019 represented a lucky escape for our country, whatever you may think of the victor that night or since.

The installation of Corbyn in Number 10 would not just have been disastrous for Britain; far worse than that, it would have been an undeserved, key victory for Putin and his mafiocracy in Moscow. What is happening in Ukraine is serious, grown-up politics, and concerns about drinks parties and even Brexit pale into insignificance in the fight against corrupt autocracies that view their neighbours’ territory with envious eyes.