There is no risk of letting the Tories in in Islington North. This will be a Corbyn versus token-Labour contest. Given the Labour Party nationally echoes Tory policies on public spending, crackdowns on protest rights and effective support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, the value of having a voice for peace and socialism who has never been afraid to challenge ministers, Tory or Labour, on their actions in Parliament is obvious.
It matters that we send the bullies and political fixers who dominate Westminster politics a message that they will not always get away with it.
It matters too that re-electing Corbyn, a nationally recognised figure, sends a national message that the socialist resurgence his 2015-20 Labour leadership represented has not been snuffed out.
Majorities consistently tell the pollsters they want higher taxes on the rich, more public spending, rail, mail, water and energy back in public hands.
A deeply undemocratic political system and a deeply dishonest and manipulative media are adept at obscuring that reality. Re-electing Jeremy Corbyn will make it that bit harder for them to do so.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is expected to stand as an independent candidate in Islington North in 4 July’s general election.
Mr Corbyn, who has represented the London constituency since 1983, was blocked from standing for Labour by the party’s governing body.
He was suspended as a Labour MP in 2020 for his response to a report into anti-Semitism in the party.
At the time Mr Corbyn called the move “political”.
His decision to run against Labour in the general election, presents a headache for leader Sir Keir Starmer, as it risks exacerbating existing tensions between himself and MPs on the left of his party.
Labour is currently selecting its own candidate to run in what has traditionally been a safe seat for the party.
Corbyn to carry the radical spirit of his tenure as Labour leader by fighting for his Islington North seat as an independent
BRITAIN’S first black female MP told Sir Keir Starmer today to give her the right to stand for Labour in the general election.
Diane Abbott told the Morning Star that she wanted to continue as Labour MP for the Hackney North constituency she has represented since 1987.
Ms Abbott said: “I apologised promptly for the letter to the Observer which caused all the fuss. But 13 months later Keir Starmer still cannot come to a decision about whether he thinks that I should be allowed to rejoin the Parliamentary Labour Party.
“Yet it only took him weeks to decide that life-long Tory Natalie Elphicke could join. I was reselected unanimously over a year ago and my constituents want to know what is happening.”
Ms Abbott has been suspended from Labour’s parliamentary party for over a year while the party purportedly investigates a short newspaper letter deemed offensive and for which she immediately apologised.
Her treatment contrasts with the indulgence shown to right-wing, and male and white, MPs who have done the same or worse and got off with a slap on the wrists.
Keir Starmer last week controversially welcomed Tory defector Natalie Elphicke into the Labour fold | Carl Court/Getty Images
The party may have a 30-point lead in the polls, but its lack of real offering to voters will soon cause problems
It’s widely agreed that England and Wales’ local election results were terrible for the Conservative Party, which lost 474 councillors, and not particularly good for the Labour Party, which gained only 186.
But many commentators still miss the current mood among Labour supporters. The party’s 30-point lead in a new YouGov poll has been extensively covered, but not the fact that its should-be supporters are hardly rejoicing at the news.
Because while many voters have distaste verging on outright anger at Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, and would certainly take pleasure in seeing them ousted from government, they have little enthusiasm for the Labour alternative.
Analysis of the local elections’ voting figures suggests Labour is headed for a much smaller lead at the general election than polls suggest; likely one sufficient to ensure it ends up in government but not anything like a landslide. In these circumstances, the tensions within the party, and how they are reflected in the attitudes of its voters, become significant – and may cause Keir Starmer serious problems in office.
Much of the discontent stems from suspicions that under Starmer, Labour is now on the centre-right and will not deliver the major reforms needed to help the millions of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet. Even in one of the few areas where Starmer previously seemed to offer hope, workers’ rights, there are suggestions that his policy will soon be watered down.
This sense that the party will continue the current government’s status quo has only been strengthened by Labour welcoming two Tory defectors into its fold in recent weeks. One of them, Natalie Elphicke, is a determinedly right-wing politician, whom many would have said was on the far right of her previous party. Some very angry Labour MPs have contrasted her official reception with the ongoing exclusion of Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn from the parliamentary party.
Starmer is also keen to play tough on defence matters, presenting Labour as strong on military spending, and determined to maintain a vastly expensive nuclear programme and Britain’s vain attempt to be a world power.
This will likely be met with opposition from many of the party’s supporters, who have objected to the UK’s involvement in numerous failed wars in the past 25 years – including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya and now Gaza.
Whatever happens in Gaza, Labour will also be left with a legacy of deep mistrust over its failure to speak up for Palestinians. The ‘Gaza rebellions’ at the local elections earlier this month, which contributed significantly to the party failing to pick up the Tories’ lost votes, were hurried affairs organised late in the day. If organisers plan earlier for the general election, they may well have a much greater impact.
Then there is the issue of the climate crisis, which looms increasingly large, especially among younger voters. Labour’s U-turn on its £28bn pledge to invest in a rapid period of decarbonisation has struck a discordant note, and many find it difficult to accept claims by shadow climate change and net zero secretary Ed Miliband that the party is still on track to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.
Labour may also soon have a problem among its own ranks. Many of the party’s 30 or so socialist-leaning MPs are keeping their heads down in the run-up to the general election for fear of suspension and deselection. This will change once the election is called. Some incoming new radicals may also be elected – who knows, even the odd socialist or two might slip through. It is certainly reasonable to think that Starmer, whether heading for a majority or minority Labour government, will have up to 40 MPs with a radical bent.
Where they will become significant will be when Labour runs into serious trouble a year or so into the new Parliament, when the multitude of toxic legacies left by 14 years of Conservative government emerge. At that point, if all Labour can offer on most policy areas is little more than modest change, British politics will become far more intens
Much of the discontent stems from suspicions that under Starmer, Labour is now on the centre-right and will not deliver the major reforms needed to help the millions of ordinary people struggling to make ends meet. Even in one of the few areas where Starmer previously seemed to offer hope, workers’ rights, there are suggestions that his policy will soon be watered down.
This sense that the party will continue the current government’s status quo has only been strengthened by Labour welcoming two Tory defectors into its fold in recent weeks. One of them, Natalie Elphicke, is a determinedly right-wing politician, whom many would have said was on the far right of her previous party. Some very angry Labour MPs have contrasted her official reception with the ongoing exclusion of Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn from the parliamentary party.
And while Labour may claim to be the party of fiscal fairness, there is little faith in it getting truly serious about controlling tax avoidance and evasion, and even less about wholesale tax reform. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has also already ruled out a wealth tax, despite the richest 1% of Britons holding more wealth than 70% of people in the UK.
Starmer is also keen to play tough on defence matters, presenting Labour as strong on military spending, and determined to maintain a vastly expensive nuclear programme and Britain’s vain attempt to be a world power.
This will likely be met with opposition from many of the party’s supporters, who have objected to the UK’s involvement in numerous failed wars in the past 25 years – including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya and now Gaza.
Whatever happens in Gaza, Labour will also be left with a legacy of deep mistrust over its failure to speak up for Palestinians. The ‘Gaza rebellions’ at the local elections earlier this month, which contributed significantly to the party failing to pick up the Tories’ lost votes, were hurried affairs organised late in the day. If organisers plan earlier for the general election, they may well have a much greater impact.
Then there is the issue of the climate crisis, which looms increasingly large, especially among younger voters. Labour’s U-turn on its £28bn pledge to invest in a rapid period of decarbonisation has struck a discordant note, and many find it difficult to accept claims by shadow climate change and net zero secretary Ed Miliband that the party is still on track to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.
Labour may also soon have a problem among its own ranks. Many of the party’s 30 or so socialist-leaning MPs are keeping their heads down in the run-up to the general election for fear of suspension and deselection. This will change once the election is called. Some incoming new radicals may also be elected – who knows, even the odd socialist or two might slip through. It is certainly reasonable to think that Starmer, whether heading for a majority or minority Labour government, will have up to 40 MPs with a radical bent.
Where they will become significant will be when Labour runs into serious trouble a year or so into the new Parliament, when the multitude of toxic legacies left by 14 years of Conservative government emerge. At that point, if all Labour can offer on most policy areas is little more than modest change, British politics will become far more intense – with a chance of some truly progressive thinking at last coming to the fore.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide. He needs to hold his seat to become prime minister.
Labour’s leader thinks he can get away with supporting genocide in Gaza. It’s time to teach him a lesson in his own backyard.
Our democracy is in crisis. The two main parties are virtually indistinguishable in their offers of permanent austerity, forever wars and environmental degradation.
Keir Starmer, the MP for Holborn and St. Pancras where my family and I have lived for around 22 years, is emblematic of this crisis. His politics are mendacious, unprincipled and in the interests of his billionaire donors rather than the constituents he was elected to serve.
I have seen real leadership in action: I was privileged to serve under Nelson Mandela as an MP in South Africa. His leadership was selfless, principled, accountable, transparent and honest. Everything that Keir Starmer is not.
His almost immediate abandonment of many of the ten progressive pledges on which he was elected to lead the Labour Party is a clear sign he cannot be trusted.
Starmer has now gone a step too far by refusing to support an unqualified ceasefire and a halt to arms sales to Israel amid the greatest human tragedy since World War Two: the genocide being committed in Gaza.
How is it possible that a former human rights lawyer, who must see the horrific images that we all view on our screens every day, has not even commented on the highest court in the world’s interim ruling that Israel is likely committing genocide and ethnic cleansing?
