It is not only the Greek left that avoids taking responsibility for its electoral failure. He did the same Jeremy Corbin and pluses in 2019 when they were defeated Boris Johnson and they saw that the north of England (their own Crete) was drawn in blue instead of red on the map. “The defeat is mine, but the media system also threw at us what it had and didn’t have,” said John McDonnell, shadow chancellor of the exchequer. At a party meeting, Corbyn accused the media of inciting voters to embrace Boris. With or without Pech’s list, the media will blame the radical left anyway. When the enemy is the establishment, you are not going to give it credit for defeating you. You will continue to attack him. You will say that he lulled the voters, bribed them and so on. The maximum that you can reproach yourself with is the quixotic fighter. How did you think you could win, as you once did with the memorandum and Merkel. The battle continues, as Alexis Tsipras said.

But there is a big difference between British Labor and SYRIZA due to the lack of simple proportionality. The British majority system requires large party coalitions. In the UK, radical left candidates are in the same party as the extreme centrists. There is no other way to parliament. Corbin coexists with Blair. Alavanos is in the same party as Simitis. This coexistence keeps the party’s internal dialogue and vigor alive.

That is why the day after the defeat, the parliamentary group, which Corbyn led for four years, gave him three parades and asked him to leave without delay. “You told us it was time to think about the outcome. I thought about the outcome and I say: “Come on now,” MP Margaret Hodge told Corbyn hours after the crash. This is what happens at big parties. They don’t work in closed families, but precisely because they have different tendencies, the day after a bad result you don’t know where it will come from.

The problem in SYRIZA is not whether Tsipras will take responsibility. The problem is that today there is no one who instinctively and imperatively asks him to speak. In New Democracy, the Dolphins have already leveled by 20 points. Dendias accused Georgiadis of arrogance because he said the party should aim for 180 seats. There is silence in SYRIZA, general reflections of comrades on camera and “out of my head” photos of Ahtsioglu from social media users.

The institutionalization of SYRIZA in a closed family environment, without objection from unpleasant relatives, is costly, not only after elections. That is why they lost by such a large margin. British dissident Labor MPs said openly before the election that the messages they get from voters when they knock on their doors are not good. The party appeared to be marginalized, cut off from its traditional base. Candidates set to work handing out leaflets at doors and in cafes. Didn’t SYRIZA understand from interacting with its own constituents that they would be blackmailed? Did they expect Phanara to tell them about it with the help of an exit poll?

A simple analogy is a measure taken by SYRIZA at an unexpected time so that there would be no need for a large political coalition before the elections. The possibility of cooperation will only be considered after elections, in an emergency and between small “beton arme” parties, without the risk of erosion by other associated political forces. It was as if the door had been locked from the inside and the key thrown away. It was also their last chance to contact the outside world. After that, they really only had Phanar left, but he was also unlucky when ominous predictions came to their doorstep. Since he didn’t have good news, it’s best not to tell us one, as Savvopoulos would say, the last black sheep in the long list of related SYRIZA.

*Mr. Timios Tsallas is a journalist based at a think tank in London.