By the same token

No, I don't think so.

We realised that she hadn't come up with any new ideas, but by the same token, neither had we.

Thanks, that makes better sense. But I found an example sentence in a dictionary:

by the same token

formal for the same reasons - used when you want to say that something else is also true, especially something very different or surprising:


I realise that he hasn't come up with any new ideas, but by the same token we haven't needed any.

For 'by the same token' you apply some kind of rule:
eg.  I give praise when I see an effort being made; by the same token, I am likely to be critical if I come across laziness or sloppy work.
The rule is here that I will draw attention to something.

In your example we can't say a rule is being used. I could say as it turned out, we didn't need any.

It is not the tense that is a problem, it is the lack of relationship of the two activities. Note the meaning of the idiom: 'for the same reasons'. What is the 'same reason' that 'he hasn't come up with any ideas' and 'we haven't needed any'? It is not evident in the sentence, so the idiom does not make sense.

Thank you for the comments. I understood the sentence so that "there weren't any new ideas put forward, neither did we need any". But I may be wrong. Thank you anyway.