Hard-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has struck a defiant tone in the wake of his party’s electoral disaster on December 12th, declaring “we won the argument” and insisting “our time will come”.

“We won the argument, but I regret we didn’t convert that into a majority for change,” ran the headline for the socialist’s first opinion piece since the historic defeat — the worst his party has suffered since the inter-war period — in the Observer, sister paper to the Guardian, and added that “There is no doubt that our policies are popular”.

Seeking an explanation as to why the party was crushed in its working-class heartlands in Northern England, then, Corbyn opined that “A Conservative party prepared to exploit divisions capitalised on the frustration created by its own failure to deliver on the [European Union] referendum result – to the cost of a Labour party seeking to bring our country together to face the future.”

Mr Corbyn neglected to mention the key role he himself played in ensuring Brexit was not delivered, however, by combining with leftist third parties and EU loyalist Tory rebel MPs — most of whom were wiped out on election day — to frustrate the process, and caving in to anti-Brexit “centrists” who insisted he commit to a policy of making the British people vote on Brexit again.

Our time will come. pic.twitter.com/VAr9rAdA0f — Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) December 15, 2019

The 70-year-old struck a somewhat less delusional tone in a letter published in the left-wing Sunday Mirror, conceding that he could “make no bones” about the fact that the result was a “body blow”.

“I remain proud of the campaign we fought. I’m proud that no matter how low our opponents went, we refused to join them in the gutter,” wrote Corbyn — who erroneously claimed that Boris Johnson and Donald Trump wanted NHS patients “opening a five-figure bill for [their] cancer treatment” and mothers “paying to give birth” during the election.

He ended on a strangely triumphalist note, however, declaring: “Make no mistake: Labour is the greatest force for progressive change this country has ever known, and although this wasn’t our moment, our time will come again” — a message echoed in a video message to supporters published on social media.

How Corbyn's Red Wall Crumbled: The UK Election in Maps https://t.co/dUqm6GgQuX — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 15, 2019

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery