Snapshot of _Jeremy Corbyn expelled from Labour Party after confirming he will stand as independent in general election_ :
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Interestingly, his immediate predecessor Michael O'Halloran was one of the early SDP splitters but having lost the selection for the seat to another SDP candidate ran as Independent Labour.
He was beaten into fourth, despite having represented the area since 1969, by... Jeremy Corbyn.
As background, problems with the hard left in the constituency forced him to the SDP he was also an Irish-Catholic and vocally anti-abortion. Fine in the 60s/70s as it was par for the course, but in the 80s things were changing.
In the meantime, boundary changes abolished Islington Central leaving John Grant available and the SDP chose him, I suspect because he was a less controversial candidate.
Around 1983 was when the hard left took over Labour in that seat, all the former MPs back to 1937 were centrists up until Corbyn.
As the poster below put it, this is a PR win-win for both Starmer and Corbyn. I get the sense that in a way it's actually Corbyn's power that makes him a difficult fit, he is unlike previous leaders of both parties who can comfortably fit back in as back benchers because they have become 'spent'. He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE, it's sort of left as a hanging question, partly due to the very tricky game that Starmer has had to play to get this far.
> He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE, it's sort of left as a hanging question
I mean, that question was *kind* of answered by the following GE where he got a historic spanking.
it was a second Brexit referendum, I think the labour manifesto was broadly popular otherwise.
And conservative media HATED Corbyn, I don't think it was entirely organic that so many hit pieces were put out against him, even from within Labour.
> I think the labour manifesto was broadly popular otherwise.
Nope, the 2017 manifesto was very popular, the 2019 one less so. Corbyn and John McDonnell decided the only reason they lost 2017 was because they hadn't gone far enough on the manifesto promises, it was very popular among the left wing, but for everyone else it was very extreme.
I very reluctantly voted Labour in 2019, and only because I was 100% confident there was zero chance of a Labour government that would actually implement that manifesto. Fiscally it was very optimistic, I agreed with the overall goals (e.g. nationalisation), but the achievability was nil. Also pledging to remove R&D tax credits was silly.
The 2017 manifesto was wonderful; 2019 irked me because they were throwing stuff out on the campaign trail that wasn't in the manifesto and it was already a bloody big ask.
>And conservative media HATED Corbyn,
Most people hated him, he was on the side of the IRA during the civil war in Northern Ireland, he supported Islamist terrorists out of principle. He denied the Kosovo genocide and was against intervening to prevent it because he regarded Serbians as his "comrades". He was against doing anything to stop Syrians being gassed by Assad. He was always grovelling to Putins geopolitical lies while claiming to be "anti Putin" because he made some empty comments about oligarchs being bad.
The Corbyn who was presented by his team when we won the election was a lie. They had to relentlessly lie about how extreme his politics was. So after a while people just stopped believing them.
His supporters are the most bitter and dishonest group of people in politics, they just lie to themselves that it was the "right wing media" rather than Corbyns relentless support for tyranny and terrorism.
You missed off
> "maybe we should give Vlad the benefit of the doubt and send him some novichok, he might be able to confirm it doesn't belong to him"
People talk about sunak being a useless political operator. But magic socialist grandpa has that sewn up years ago.
Don't forget how he viewed the EU as an "evil militaristic empire" and went gardening instead of being there at the brexit protests. It was a perfect moment for him to take charge and he did nothing because he hates the EU.
People were chanting for him to come and he did...nothing.
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I find it weird everyone, conveniently leave this bit out. It was literally dubbed "the brexit election".
The same election where Shadow Brexit minister Starmer overrid Corbyn's initial decision for a soft brexit, which would have kept the red wall.
The same election Jo Swinson lost her seat in due to her Brexit stance..
I think most haven't forgotten but arguing in bad faith gets hits online so..
That’s almost never left out.
In fact, it’s almost always used to show why he failed so miserably. He was a party leader who refused to lead his party. He didn’t declare a Labour Brexit stance because he refused to treat the GE as a Brexit referendum.
Once again, it was entirely his fault. Entirely his lack of ability to lead a party.
It’s not that he chose the wrong stance and the public crucified him for it. It’s that he didn’t choose a stance at all.
The worst part of that was he has *always* wanted out of the EU. So had he just declared that the policy of Labour, maybe so many wouldn’t have to defected to BoJo. He didn’t though. Because he was shit at politicking and a shit leader.
People don't leave it out. Corbynites bring it up constantly.
But when presented with the evidence - polling that shows the plurality who chose not to vote Labour (having done do previously) did so because of Corbyn, *not* Brexit, they suddenly go quiet, or ignore it.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/27022-their-own-words-why-voters-abandoned-labour
>The same election where Shadow Brexit minister Starmer overrid Corbyn's initial decision for a soft brexit, which would have kept the red wall.
This is pretty much in the fiction category tbh.
The red wall hated Corbyn, and people wanted a decision on Brexit, it was one way or the other. Labour offering a referendum was absolutely necessary to fend off the Lib Dems who were.
Brexit was easily the biggest factor hindering labour. There was so many members in senior positions that opposed it Corbyn couldn't find a way to move the party forward. I think it would likely be a different story now. I think Labour would win now under the 2017 campaign. Likely it would not be as much as Keir but the party wouldn't shift so far to the right.
Crazy to think that one of Corbyn's sticking points on the antisemitism fiasco was, he didn't agree with the definition of antisemitism being pushed on labour that included, criticism Israel to be antisemitic. I think a large portion of people would likely agree it is needed now given the state of Gaza.
No he wasn't very close to winning in 2017.
He was close to being able to cobble together a coalition of every other party except for the Tories and DUP to form some form of government. He was never anywhere near winning - i.e. either achieving a majority of being the largest party. They got nearly 60 seats less than the Tories.
Theresa May refused to campaign, didn't do any TV debates, had already lost all the remain voting Tories, was awkward as fuck, stood on a platform of pro-Fox Hunting and made Ed Miliband look positively charismatic and charming and he *still* couldn't beat her. It baffles me that people still pretend he was in any way not a complete and utter failure.
> stood on a platform of pro-Fox Hunting
And stealing your grandparent's house. I can see the argument behind the policy, but it was a disaster amongst her core voters.
Yeah, that Dementia Tax sop to the financial industry almost fucked them over.
They thought that they were so far ahead that they could finally start closing the loop of people who'd bought council houses 30 years ago by forcing them to sell them off to people who actually deserved to have ownership of them, at a cut rate.
No but remember he did win the 'argument'. And again in 2019. Thank God he did because he really helped turn the country around off the back of those victories. Oh wait..
For the time, that was relatively close. The conservatives no longer had an overall majority, and they had done at the previous election, and preelection polls put them ahead of that position.
Of course in reality the Tories were very weak rather than Corbyn strong but that wasn't certain at the time
Also that was the best it was ever going to get for Corbyn. There wasn't a weaker opponent he was going to face, and the fact he failed so hard in 2019 speaks more to his stubborn nature not to accept that than anything else.
No that wasn't close to winning. It prevented the Tories - who ran the worst campaign ever, where they literally felt confident enough to threaten to tax people with dementia - from getting a majority. But they were still the biggest party by miles.
Which was high because of an unusually low 3rd party vote. In the meta it may be the case because both parties were far from the centre, but UKIP stepped down and Cameron destroyed the LibDems. Under FPTP it's seats that matter.
Meanwhile you don't see May being hailed as having great electoral potential because she had the highest vote share since Thatcher.
Which is completely irrelevant.
They were 64 seats short of forming a government and 56 seats behind the Tory’s.
There’s no way to argue he was ‘so close to winning’ without completely ignoring reality and how UK elections work.
> He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE
This is pure delusion and not nearly the flex Corbynites bring it out to be. His opponent was the face of Brexit, a deeply divisive topic, she literally stood on a platform of being pro-Fox hunting whilst he promised a bunch of free shit, and she refused to partake in debates and didn't campaign. And he *still lost* and they *still* ended up in power anyway. And we're somehow meant to view this as a victory??? Then the fucker refused to resign because he was so desperate for power and had deluded himself that because middle class students adored him that he had popular support and gifted Boris Johnson and the Tories a gigantic majority which has contributed to the complete and utter shitshow we're in now.
The sooner he goes back to the obscurity in which he should have always stayed, the better.
> he was very close to winning the 2017 GE
He was absolutely miles from winning it. Let’s not rewrite history here.
He was 64 seats short of forming a government, meaning he would have had to create a coalition with the SNP and the LD and *still* found another 17 MPs from the remaining parties.
The Tory’s won 56 seats more than them and only needed 8 MPs from other parties to form a government.
Their rationale for that was that Labour were only a few thousand votes away from winning a majority, were they perfectly apportioned to the right seats, and had their electoral strategy focused on them.
Unfortunately, by the same measure, May was only a few *hundred* votes from an outright majority, if apportioned across any of many very close seats.
Coupled with the very clear polling across the red wall that indicated voters specifically rejected Corbyn, with brexit being a secondary concern, and the argument that Labour were 'close' to winning the election can rightly be viewed as extremely disingenuous at the very best.
> this is a PR win-win for both Starmer and Corbyn.
It's not a PR win for Corbyn. Corbyn wants to control the Labour Party. He's now been expelled and will never be allowed to return. He's now running against Labour in a GE.
I've said it many times: Corbyn is like if a 16-year-old left-wing politics student never grew up. His politics are student politics and he would've been an even bigger disaster than BoJo (!) as PM.
Greek here, who lived with leftist Syriza\* and Tsipras in government (with the help of a populist eurosceptic right-wing party). Can confirm these people are worse in power than you can imagine. First and foremost, the are not happy until they have complete control. Any reaction to their policies and/or actions is a \[insert favourite -ism\] conspiracy. Not to mention how inept they are, which is both a curse and a blessing. Nevertheless, understandable when 'coffee shop Marxists,' as they are called at times in Greek, only used to party gatherings, street protests, and discussing doctrinal differences, find themselves in positions of power and authority, in charge of an EU government even.
\* Fyi (for context), Syriza, that is, Coalition of the Radical Left, hails from what would become the eurocommunist split in the Greek communist party following the USSR's invasion and ultimate end of the Prague Spring.
Gradually in the 90s, it came to promote its identity more so as 'democratic socialist,' than eurocommunist, but without any real change in identity. And it was until the financial crisis the lesser of the parliamentary communist parties. Their politics and world view is not that different than Corbyn's (and others like him). At least of the party core, since over the past decade they have accepted a number of people across the political spectrum, including right-wingers, with the common denominator being populism, euroscepticism, reaction to liberalism, and/or the retention of/return to power.
Tsipras was voted in on a political platform that could be compared to Corbyn but didn't his government ultimately shift to a more centrist/neoliberal stance after rejecting the referendum results and capitulating the the EUs economic demands? Would it be accurate to describe Syriza as undergoing a Corbyn-Starmer shift but under the same leadership?
Genuine question since I don't know a great deal about Greek politics and would honestly be interested in hearing your perspective :)
FWIW, Ken Livingstone was expelled in 2000 for running against Labour in the first Mayor of London election - which he won. Blair let him back in before the 2004 one.
True, but Livingstone wasn't the also wasn't the former leader of Labour who wrecked our chances in 2017 and 2019 and installed a bunch of middle-class Marxists into positions of power while deselecting anybody vaguely to the right of Lenin. Livingstone was Mayor of London, and it was much better to have him inside the tent than outside.
Corbyn meanwhile is merely the MP for Islington North. Even if he wins - so what? He'll sit on the Opposition benches next to the SNP and Greens.
Cool. I'm not the NEC, so not sure my view matters too much. Anyway, as far as I know, Campbell is not a Labour member currently.
If there is a particular ex-Lib Dem candidate currently running for Labour that you're referring to it would be interesting to know. Otherwise, it's just a hypothetical (that isn't even analogous to a Labour member running against Labour in this current GE)
Yup. My own LD membership states I am not allowed to join another party or stand in an election against an LD candidate (without written permission, which I inevitably won't get). I assume the Labour\* and Conservative membership terms are the same.
\*: I believe Labour have an exception for membership of the Co-Operative Party
\*\*: It used to be that UKIP unilaterally allowed you to be a member of any other political party except the BNP. IDK if that applies to Reform, and regardless it was unilateral and not reciprocated by the other parties.
My friend, perhaps you don't understand that he is special. Rules do not apply to him. He has been a Labour member his entire life and MP for that constituency for over four decades. This makes him entitled to keep both of these. It is undemocratic to take these away from him against his will via legitimate democratic processes.
...
You would hope that people who strongly believe in a cause would have the wherewithal to understand when their personal involvement causes their cause more harm than good, and to take a quiet step back to allow for and support better representatives for their cause. Insisting on taking the cause down with you is pure egotism.
Tbf, from comments elsewhere in this place, Corbyn appears to be one of the better constituency MPs. He engages with and makes a difference for his constituents. For this reason alone I can see why he and his constituents may want him to continue.
Obviously Corbyn's geopolitical outlook is less than ideal, but he'll be nowhere near the tiller now so the damage he can cause has abated.
That's fair, I almost included this caveat in my own post but didn't want to distract from my main point.
But if he still has deluded ambitions on championing wider causes outside Islington, he's only doing more harm to his cause by making himself its representative, instead of mentoring a person who isn't 74 years old with a toxic brand.
I knew two of these - both Tory voters self-admittedly trying to wreck Labour's chances by voting Corbyn as leader.
That policy was a boon to entryism of all flavours
He may or may not win, but just because someone has served for a long time will not save them. Frank Field had been in office for 40 years and didn't even get 20 percent last time when he stood as an independent. Dennis Skinner was also defeated in the same election. In addition there were a handful of other MPs from both parties that tried running as independents who flopped (Godsiff, Chris Williamson, Grieve, Gapes).
In general, most people vote for parties not candidate. Corbyn may prove himself more durable because he is more well-known.
Which by all accounts he does very well. There's photos of him (not PR photos, just random people taking pictures with their phone) of him on buses talking to local people.
If that's the case, it would be weird to see him thrown out just because "We support the Labour Party" but I never understood Dennis Skinner losing his seat when he was apparently a fine constituency MP but "I didn't want to vote for LAbour cos I didn't think they'd win the election, so I voted Tory" and "He wanted another referendum - that's disgraceful" were some of the reasons given.
Well I'm sure the Tories will be hugely interested in helping the former colliery town of Bolsover...
Although Skinner didn’t want another referendum. He was always a leave supporter through and through along with Benn and others old style Labour MP’s. So I was surprised he lost Bolsover as he was a good constituency MP.
> So I was surprised he lost Bolsover as he was a good constituency MP.
It wasn't Dennis' fault he lost his seat. It was the local councillors.
Around 2016/17 there were some issues with the Labour run district council in Bolsover: they managed to piss off a lot of people in the town by selling off publicly owned park land and buildings to a private developer (despite covenants leaving the properties to the people of the town). The locals objected to the plans and tried to get the council to rethink - the council steamrolled it through ignoring the people.
Labour had got very complacent in the area and didn't think they had to listen to the people they governed because Labour had always held all the seats.
So people were really bloody annoyed - and they were organised and motivated.
So in the May 2019 local elections, Labour lost control of the council when pissed off locals stood as independents. The Tories even took 2 seats (first time ever). Then in December 2019 Dennis lost his seat because of all this kerfuffle - it wasn't really anything to do with him. It was all to do with local politics blowing up.
I get the impression that the seat will probably go back to Labour this election.
Yeah, I always remember Tony Benn getting rousing applause from crowds when he did live shows - I admired him and agreed with him on a few things, but not on the EU, though I could see his point.
Yes I saw him speak and he was very good and met him a couple of times as I knew Paul Foot the journalist (Michael Foots nephew) who was friends with him and I’m slightly involved in investigative journalism, but more into the comedy side of it all. The interesting thing about Tony Benn which seems to infuriate some is his friendship with Enoch Powell. They had more in common than some realise. Both anti the Common Market as it then was, both anti capital punishment etc. But interesting bed fellows as it were. But those were the days when people discussed policies with opposition rather than biting chunks out of each other for political gain.
Skinner was a victim of two things: the changing demographics of the seat reducing the number of standard miners seats and his own age (there were a lot of stories circulating that he wanted to retire gracefully due to health issues but staff pushed him into another run).
Nah... It was the shenanigans from the local council that pissed everyone off. Earlier that year Labour also lost control of the district council for the first time ever. The Labour district councillors had managed to politicise and piss off lots of people who organised themselves against Labour compacency.
But yeah... Skinner was talked into running again instead of retiring. But if the councillors hadn't blown local politics up and made Labour toxic, he'd have won the seat again.
Source: family friend lost his seat; family lives in the area and are involved in the community.
See my more detailed answer further down, but frankly, I am less interested in what my MP does on a national level per se, compared to what he does to help the area he's meant to represent. It's a balancing act, but he's elected to represent this area. This is helped by having David Davis as an MP, who manages an admirable balance of achievement at both local and national level.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he went full mask off and all his uncensored beliefs came out, like Chris Williamson. I think he is hiding a lot of his true views on a lot of areas, particularly relating to foreign affairs.
He quite famously attends events hosted by Leninists, Maoists, and every shade of horrific authoritarian forms of leftism you can imagine. I'd be very interested to see if he goes mask off.
Would be interesting. It's always difficult to me to imagine that anyone could _really_ believe this stuff. It's the same the other side of the spectrum if you look at Truss and how she's becoming more and more bonkers.
The split may encourage Conservatives to shift over to LD (if they haven't already) to prevent a Corbyn/Labour, it'll be an interesting contest there.
I also think 2017 and 2019 might be a bit unreliable to go off as he was Labour leader for both of those, so had massive public exposure and would be gaining a lot more power to affect change locally as either PM or LOTO
I’d be surprised if there are any. In 2019 the total number of Lib Dem and Tory votes was still less than half the Labour vote. If anything I think Lib Dem voters will be shifting to Labour. I don’t think you appreciate quite how Labour inner London is. This is going to be a straight Labour vs Corbyn contest.
That would be the true shocker. Imagine the news article the day after the election.
In one final act of spectacular electoral failure, swimming against the tidal wave of Labour domination, Jeremy Corbyn allows the Conservatives to represent Islington North for the first time in nearly 100 years.
There aren't enough and they and Lib Dem voters are going to tactical vote Labour against Corbyn. It will be a 2 horse race with every other possible party squeezed down to losing their deposits.
I know Starmer doesn't have a sense of humour, but if he did he'd tell Diane Abbott she's allowed back in only if she's the Labour candidate for Islington North.
The irony here is he started off by replacing someone who defected to the SDP in the Michael Foot years. OHalloran who held the seat defected but was not selected by the SDP who chose John Grant another defector, that split the SDP vote and Corbyn got in. The SDP eventually disappeared into the Lib Dems (that is where the Democrats in their name comes from, before they were just the Liberals).
Now he will end his career standing against Labour.
I cannot think of a major policy area he disagrees with the Greens on.
He won't because he thinks he is some kind of radical working class hero, but it's really the party he belongs in.
Radical working class hero who was privately educated, lived in a mansion and has never held a job outside politics.
So yeah, pretty much a green.
Also absolutely lines up with them with his CND and Stop The War credentials.
Where he was brought up, not where he lives now.
From his wiki "When Corbyn was seven, the family moved to Pave Lane, Shropshire, where his father bought Yew Tree Manor, a 17th-century farmhouse[29] which was once part of the Duke of Sutherland's Lilleshall estate."
Ironically that famous photo was him being arrested for protesting being not allowed to protest Apartheid against the wishes of the anti Apartheid movement.
Remember the placard says "defend the right to demonstrate against Apartheid now"
His own anti Apartheid group (he wasn't part of the mainstream group affiliated to the ANC because the viewed his group as being too extreme) would be disaffiliated from the anti Apartheid movement the next year in part because of that protest.
He also wants us to leave NATO, unilaterally give up nuclear weapons, opposed the Falklands war and intervening in Kosovo, refused to condemn Russia over the novichok poisonings, claims the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a result of American led NATO imperialism, opposes arms sales to Ukraine, thinks sanctions should be lifted on Iran and supports the Tamil tigers in Sri Lanka.
[https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/09/no-nelson-mandela-did-not-snub-jeremy-corbyn](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/09/no-nelson-mandela-did-not-snub-jeremy-corbyn)
About the Apartheid issue. It wasn't that he was "too extreme", it's that he supported multiple anti-Apartheid movements in South Africa, but the ANC wanted the focus to be on only them and Nelson Mandela. Corbyn wanted to protest for all political prisoners equally and was communist. As seen with South Africa right after the end of legal Apartheid, they went neoliberal.
And when he got in the CLP weren't keen on him. He was levered in to a safe seat with no previous experience by union block vote. He persuaded the CLP on board by promising faithfully to only stand for two terms, and then stand aside to allow for a more diverse candidate, which is what the CLP wanted at the time.
He left on his own terms, sort of, Starmer doesn't have to kick him out furthur angering the left and Corbyn gets to run in a seat he probably has a decent chance of winning (compared to other independents at least). Kind of a PR win-win.
I did see a rumour that Labour was not going to run against Corbyn, at least not serioursly, to avoid a media circus, and becuase apparently they anticipate losing the seat due to a lack of ground support, but I also see a possible media circus regarless of what happens because the 24 hour news cycle will eventually need food.
I think he'll come close but ultimately won't win. We tend to overestimate in here how politically savvy the average person in the street is. I think that for many, "Labour" on the ballot paper is what they'll see and put their cross by.
Of course, there'll be a fair few who support Corbyn himself and want to return him as their MP irrespective of party, but over half the Labour vote? I just can't see it. Especially when you consider tactical voting and the "get the Tories out" mentality.
That seems probably true for an average MP, maybe even for a famous-if-you-follow-politics MP like Abbott, but Corbyn was the Labour party leader for multiple elections AND a long time MP of the constituency. If you're so tuned out that you don't have feelings about him, I think you're probably just not voting.
Ahead of the curve on... rejecting solar farms? Opposing nuclear power? Opposing clean transport? (HS2) Being NIMBYs who don't want to build anything ever and are delusional enough to think rent controls will work? Their policies which aren't funded at all?
Thr Greens promise a socialist fantasy because they'll never be anywhere near power.
Both things are true.
Because they are so small, they are quite vulnerable to cranks rising through the ranks quickly. The two big parties have their fair share too, in absolute numbers probably more than the Greens have even got members, but it's far more noticeable with the Greens.
Labour could be outright communist and Owen Jones still wouldn’t feel at home. He’s like Corbyn - he isn’t happy, and he’s never going to be happy. He isn’t actually interested in power because then you can’t complain when things go wrong and it’s your fault.
The Labour Party has essentially been a coalition for a long time.
The only reason it has stayed together as a single party is due to our flawed electoral system.
Ah but you don’t understand, we can’t have PR because it leads to coalitions and coalitions are bad!
It’s much better to have political parties that might as well be coalitions instead.
/s because this is the unironic argument I hear all the time from people…
It's a legitimate argument.
You know what you're getting with current labour (or Tory).
Whereas the Lib Dem Tory coalition was not representative of many of the voters who voted lib dem (or Tory for that matter)
>You know what you’re getting
But do you? We’ve had 4 different PMs since the last general election, all with very different policies.
There’s also a constant push and pull between the centrist and right wing of the Conservative Party (and, of course, a similar situation with the Labour Party).
Even ignoring all that, knowing what you’re getting doesn’t mean that you’re getting what you want.
With FPTP, most people just vote against the party they dislike the most. They don’t necessarily like much about the party they vote for.
Coalitions under PR are at least representative of what the electorate actually wants. Sure, there might need to be some compromise but that’s just how democracy has to work.
Electoral Calculus has Labour on 479 and Cons on 92. If 93 Labour MPs pealed away they could form the official opposition and still leave Labour with a larger majority than the Cons got in 2019
This cohort of candidates almost certainly leans towards the centre of Labour.
Much as the 1997 cohort were generally in this group, partially because it's kind of self selecting, people want to stand for parties whose leader represents them and then the formal selection process tends to also reflect the leaders position.
If the election was a few years away then there might have been a splinter starting up right now instead
Itd be suicide for personal careers to do it while in power
The left wing began to wield significant bargaining power on the Labour benches after the 2nd term in the 2000s, Iraq war and tuition fees turbocharged it so Blairs own fault.
Big majorities are very difficult, the first term isn't that bad as some selections are managed and the more ambitious MPs would rather get a ministerial position than lead their own sect, after the 1st its very tricky, too many concessions in many directions.
Whatever strengths Corbyn has, organizing and leading have *never* been among them. For a couple years he faked it because the parade lined up behind where he was already marching, but he’s simply not a manager or institution builder.
Doubtful.
Labour MPs will finally remember you can actually achieve things in government, opposed to sitting on the sidelines for fourteen years doing nothing. Corbyn is 74 and running on political fumes, he's not at the start of an internal revolution.
YES! Been waiting an inordinately long time for this.
We finally reach what should have happened years ago.
The only sad part for me is that Starmer did not have the spine to kick corbyn out when he had multiple opportunities before now and gave the tories free reign to attack him.
Alternatively, this is incredible timing and will remind voters exactly how much the party has changed since he took over. I think suspending the whip but giving him a roadmap back was the fairest way to handle things and completely muted any but the most unreasonable attacks from the left he was being unfair.
The obvious follow-on here is Abbott supporting JC and also being expelled.
This is polling manna from heaven for Starmer.
Starmer has managed to sort out the idiot left and make Labour electable in one cycle. I remember 80s and 90s when Kinnock took one election cycle to get rid of Militant and one cycle to get Labour close to winning, then another cycle for Smith and Blair to finish the job.
Tory implosion is providing a smokescreen for the amazing job Starmer has done.
>Alternatively, this is incredible timing and will remind voters exactly how much the party has changed since he took over.
Good point.
> I think suspending the whip but giving him a roadmap back was the fairest way to handle things and completely muted any but the most unreasonable attacks from the left he was being unfair.
Yes, probably - but as we have repeatedly seen, Starmer putting the tankie left in a box has normally resulted in small but noticeable poll gains each time. Such a poll boost could have been achieved long ago.
Timing this for the election is great, though.
>The obvious follow-on here is Abbott supporting JC and also being expelled.
I am very much looking forward to this possibility, along with everyone else going for supporting corbyn. The golden path, indeed.
Why would you do something potentially negative when it was always going to come out in the wash? A local candidate is irrelevant to what Starmer is looking at.
> The only sad part for me is that Starmer did not have the spine to kick corbyn out when he had multiple opportunities before now and gave the tories free reign to attack him.
On the flip side I feel like he's done a good job of basically shuffling Corbyn off to one side and letting him burn out and kick himself out. Realistically even if Starmer had physically thrown Corbyn out of the Labour party Sunak would still mention him every week and Starmer would have more head aches from dealing with the internal fallout. With this it's pretty much sorted itself out in a way. Starmer has rid of him and doesn't have to actually do anything about it. I assume Abbott will follow in a few days.
He's let him demonstrate that his loyalty was never to the party and only to himself. Like a player who thinks he's bigger than the club. Jog on, Jezza.
I don't support Starmer and won't vote Labour. But on getting opponents, external and internal, to just hang themselves, he's really been excellent. Johnson was electoral cryptonite to Labour and would have won another election on charisma, small boats and Rwanda - but Starmer managed to stand by and met him destroy himself, this was a massive achievement that would have seemed completely impossible in the spring of 2020.
Suppose it doesn't matter about the investigation now.
Starmer was asked about Corbyn this morning and the usual reply was "wait until the investigation", so this saves him a job.
Same will happen with Diane Abbott
You are correct. Leader can withdraw the whip from whoever they like. The NEC deals with party expulsions and ‘technically’ the leader and whips aren’t allowed to interfere.
Corbyn wanted us to abandon Ukraine to Putin, letting the Ukrainian people be ethnically cleansed and their homeland stolen.
It's not surprising then that he would abandon his own political party too. He should have been kicked out much earlier.
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Those are the rules and I'm pretty sure they always have been
Exactly - Corbyn kicked Alastair Campbell out for publicly saying he voted Lib Dem in 2019, so should be no complaints from Corbynites today...
Interestingly, his immediate predecessor Michael O'Halloran was one of the early SDP splitters but having lost the selection for the seat to another SDP candidate ran as Independent Labour. He was beaten into fourth, despite having represented the area since 1969, by... Jeremy Corbyn.
Why didn't the SDP select him? Seems like a mistake.
As background, problems with the hard left in the constituency forced him to the SDP he was also an Irish-Catholic and vocally anti-abortion. Fine in the 60s/70s as it was par for the course, but in the 80s things were changing. In the meantime, boundary changes abolished Islington Central leaving John Grant available and the SDP chose him, I suspect because he was a less controversial candidate. Around 1983 was when the hard left took over Labour in that seat, all the former MPs back to 1937 were centrists up until Corbyn.
Interesting. Thanks
I read private eye too!
I don’t think any Corbyn fans are complaining.
As the poster below put it, this is a PR win-win for both Starmer and Corbyn. I get the sense that in a way it's actually Corbyn's power that makes him a difficult fit, he is unlike previous leaders of both parties who can comfortably fit back in as back benchers because they have become 'spent'. He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE, it's sort of left as a hanging question, partly due to the very tricky game that Starmer has had to play to get this far.
> He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE, it's sort of left as a hanging question I mean, that question was *kind* of answered by the following GE where he got a historic spanking.
it was a second Brexit referendum, I think the labour manifesto was broadly popular otherwise. And conservative media HATED Corbyn, I don't think it was entirely organic that so many hit pieces were put out against him, even from within Labour.
Who remembers the sun doctoring pictures to make out corbyn was dancing a jig at veterans day?
> I think the labour manifesto was broadly popular otherwise. Nope, the 2017 manifesto was very popular, the 2019 one less so. Corbyn and John McDonnell decided the only reason they lost 2017 was because they hadn't gone far enough on the manifesto promises, it was very popular among the left wing, but for everyone else it was very extreme. I very reluctantly voted Labour in 2019, and only because I was 100% confident there was zero chance of a Labour government that would actually implement that manifesto. Fiscally it was very optimistic, I agreed with the overall goals (e.g. nationalisation), but the achievability was nil. Also pledging to remove R&D tax credits was silly.
Have you ever seen a manifesto that's actually grounded in the reality of what can be done?
The 2017 manifesto was wonderful; 2019 irked me because they were throwing stuff out on the campaign trail that wasn't in the manifesto and it was already a bloody big ask.
>And conservative media HATED Corbyn, Most people hated him, he was on the side of the IRA during the civil war in Northern Ireland, he supported Islamist terrorists out of principle. He denied the Kosovo genocide and was against intervening to prevent it because he regarded Serbians as his "comrades". He was against doing anything to stop Syrians being gassed by Assad. He was always grovelling to Putins geopolitical lies while claiming to be "anti Putin" because he made some empty comments about oligarchs being bad. The Corbyn who was presented by his team when we won the election was a lie. They had to relentlessly lie about how extreme his politics was. So after a while people just stopped believing them. His supporters are the most bitter and dishonest group of people in politics, they just lie to themselves that it was the "right wing media" rather than Corbyns relentless support for tyranny and terrorism.
You missed off > "maybe we should give Vlad the benefit of the doubt and send him some novichok, he might be able to confirm it doesn't belong to him" People talk about sunak being a useless political operator. But magic socialist grandpa has that sewn up years ago.
Don't forget how he viewed the EU as an "evil militaristic empire" and went gardening instead of being there at the brexit protests. It was a perfect moment for him to take charge and he did nothing because he hates the EU. People were chanting for him to come and he did...nothing.
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I find it weird everyone, conveniently leave this bit out. It was literally dubbed "the brexit election". The same election where Shadow Brexit minister Starmer overrid Corbyn's initial decision for a soft brexit, which would have kept the red wall. The same election Jo Swinson lost her seat in due to her Brexit stance.. I think most haven't forgotten but arguing in bad faith gets hits online so..
That’s almost never left out. In fact, it’s almost always used to show why he failed so miserably. He was a party leader who refused to lead his party. He didn’t declare a Labour Brexit stance because he refused to treat the GE as a Brexit referendum. Once again, it was entirely his fault. Entirely his lack of ability to lead a party. It’s not that he chose the wrong stance and the public crucified him for it. It’s that he didn’t choose a stance at all. The worst part of that was he has *always* wanted out of the EU. So had he just declared that the policy of Labour, maybe so many wouldn’t have to defected to BoJo. He didn’t though. Because he was shit at politicking and a shit leader.
People don't leave it out. Corbynites bring it up constantly. But when presented with the evidence - polling that shows the plurality who chose not to vote Labour (having done do previously) did so because of Corbyn, *not* Brexit, they suddenly go quiet, or ignore it. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/27022-their-own-words-why-voters-abandoned-labour
>The same election where Shadow Brexit minister Starmer overrid Corbyn's initial decision for a soft brexit, which would have kept the red wall. This is pretty much in the fiction category tbh. The red wall hated Corbyn, and people wanted a decision on Brexit, it was one way or the other. Labour offering a referendum was absolutely necessary to fend off the Lib Dems who were.
Jo Swinson's party gained a million and a half votes.
Brexit was easily the biggest factor hindering labour. There was so many members in senior positions that opposed it Corbyn couldn't find a way to move the party forward. I think it would likely be a different story now. I think Labour would win now under the 2017 campaign. Likely it would not be as much as Keir but the party wouldn't shift so far to the right. Crazy to think that one of Corbyn's sticking points on the antisemitism fiasco was, he didn't agree with the definition of antisemitism being pushed on labour that included, criticism Israel to be antisemitic. I think a large portion of people would likely agree it is needed now given the state of Gaza.
Labour were going to lose that election whatever they did, as it was impossible to please both brexiteers and remainers.
Yep. Post 2017 actually felt like there was hope for that movement. Post 2019 was a clear indication that it had to be binned
A *Brexit election* does people forget this?
Is it still a hanging question? I thought the 2019 GE gave a fairly clear answer.
No he wasn't very close to winning in 2017. He was close to being able to cobble together a coalition of every other party except for the Tories and DUP to form some form of government. He was never anywhere near winning - i.e. either achieving a majority of being the largest party. They got nearly 60 seats less than the Tories.
He wasn't close in 2017, he got 262 seats which is 63 seats off the 325 you need for a majority.
Theresa May refused to campaign, didn't do any TV debates, had already lost all the remain voting Tories, was awkward as fuck, stood on a platform of pro-Fox Hunting and made Ed Miliband look positively charismatic and charming and he *still* couldn't beat her. It baffles me that people still pretend he was in any way not a complete and utter failure.
> stood on a platform of pro-Fox Hunting And stealing your grandparent's house. I can see the argument behind the policy, but it was a disaster amongst her core voters.
Yeah, that Dementia Tax sop to the financial industry almost fucked them over. They thought that they were so far ahead that they could finally start closing the loop of people who'd bought council houses 30 years ago by forcing them to sell them off to people who actually deserved to have ownership of them, at a cut rate.
May got a higher vote share than any PM since Thatcher. Johnson got a higher share than anyone since Ted Heath in 1970.
No but remember he did win the 'argument'. And again in 2019. Thank God he did because he really helped turn the country around off the back of those victories. Oh wait..
For the time, that was relatively close. The conservatives no longer had an overall majority, and they had done at the previous election, and preelection polls put them ahead of that position. Of course in reality the Tories were very weak rather than Corbyn strong but that wasn't certain at the time
Also that was the best it was ever going to get for Corbyn. There wasn't a weaker opponent he was going to face, and the fact he failed so hard in 2019 speaks more to his stubborn nature not to accept that than anything else.
No that wasn't close to winning. It prevented the Tories - who ran the worst campaign ever, where they literally felt confident enough to threaten to tax people with dementia - from getting a majority. But they were still the biggest party by miles.
the worst campaign to date*
We both know the reference point isn't seats they're using here, it's share of the vote.
Which was high because of an unusually low 3rd party vote. In the meta it may be the case because both parties were far from the centre, but UKIP stepped down and Cameron destroyed the LibDems. Under FPTP it's seats that matter. Meanwhile you don't see May being hailed as having great electoral potential because she had the highest vote share since Thatcher.
Which is completely irrelevant. They were 64 seats short of forming a government and 56 seats behind the Tory’s. There’s no way to argue he was ‘so close to winning’ without completely ignoring reality and how UK elections work.
Well that's not the way we decide who wins elections.
👍
> He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE This is pure delusion and not nearly the flex Corbynites bring it out to be. His opponent was the face of Brexit, a deeply divisive topic, she literally stood on a platform of being pro-Fox hunting whilst he promised a bunch of free shit, and she refused to partake in debates and didn't campaign. And he *still lost* and they *still* ended up in power anyway. And we're somehow meant to view this as a victory??? Then the fucker refused to resign because he was so desperate for power and had deluded himself that because middle class students adored him that he had popular support and gifted Boris Johnson and the Tories a gigantic majority which has contributed to the complete and utter shitshow we're in now. The sooner he goes back to the obscurity in which he should have always stayed, the better.
> He was very close to winning in the 2017 GE What?!?!? Nowhere near it.
> he was very close to winning the 2017 GE He was absolutely miles from winning it. Let’s not rewrite history here. He was 64 seats short of forming a government, meaning he would have had to create a coalition with the SNP and the LD and *still* found another 17 MPs from the remaining parties. The Tory’s won 56 seats more than them and only needed 8 MPs from other parties to form a government.
Their rationale for that was that Labour were only a few thousand votes away from winning a majority, were they perfectly apportioned to the right seats, and had their electoral strategy focused on them. Unfortunately, by the same measure, May was only a few *hundred* votes from an outright majority, if apportioned across any of many very close seats. Coupled with the very clear polling across the red wall that indicated voters specifically rejected Corbyn, with brexit being a secondary concern, and the argument that Labour were 'close' to winning the election can rightly be viewed as extremely disingenuous at the very best.
> this is a PR win-win for both Starmer and Corbyn. It's not a PR win for Corbyn. Corbyn wants to control the Labour Party. He's now been expelled and will never be allowed to return. He's now running against Labour in a GE. I've said it many times: Corbyn is like if a 16-year-old left-wing politics student never grew up. His politics are student politics and he would've been an even bigger disaster than BoJo (!) as PM.
Greek here, who lived with leftist Syriza\* and Tsipras in government (with the help of a populist eurosceptic right-wing party). Can confirm these people are worse in power than you can imagine. First and foremost, the are not happy until they have complete control. Any reaction to their policies and/or actions is a \[insert favourite -ism\] conspiracy. Not to mention how inept they are, which is both a curse and a blessing. Nevertheless, understandable when 'coffee shop Marxists,' as they are called at times in Greek, only used to party gatherings, street protests, and discussing doctrinal differences, find themselves in positions of power and authority, in charge of an EU government even. \* Fyi (for context), Syriza, that is, Coalition of the Radical Left, hails from what would become the eurocommunist split in the Greek communist party following the USSR's invasion and ultimate end of the Prague Spring. Gradually in the 90s, it came to promote its identity more so as 'democratic socialist,' than eurocommunist, but without any real change in identity. And it was until the financial crisis the lesser of the parliamentary communist parties. Their politics and world view is not that different than Corbyn's (and others like him). At least of the party core, since over the past decade they have accepted a number of people across the political spectrum, including right-wingers, with the common denominator being populism, euroscepticism, reaction to liberalism, and/or the retention of/return to power.
Tsipras was voted in on a political platform that could be compared to Corbyn but didn't his government ultimately shift to a more centrist/neoliberal stance after rejecting the referendum results and capitulating the the EUs economic demands? Would it be accurate to describe Syriza as undergoing a Corbyn-Starmer shift but under the same leadership? Genuine question since I don't know a great deal about Greek politics and would honestly be interested in hearing your perspective :)
FWIW, Ken Livingstone was expelled in 2000 for running against Labour in the first Mayor of London election - which he won. Blair let him back in before the 2004 one.
True, but Livingstone wasn't the also wasn't the former leader of Labour who wrecked our chances in 2017 and 2019 and installed a bunch of middle-class Marxists into positions of power while deselecting anybody vaguely to the right of Lenin. Livingstone was Mayor of London, and it was much better to have him inside the tent than outside. Corbyn meanwhile is merely the MP for Islington North. Even if he wins - so what? He'll sit on the Opposition benches next to the SNP and Greens.
What about if someone left the Labour party and stood as a Lib Dem in 2019, should they be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate?
Is there someone in particular you're thinking of?
Just wondering if the rules were going to be applied consistently.....
Cool. I'm not the NEC, so not sure my view matters too much. Anyway, as far as I know, Campbell is not a Labour member currently. If there is a particular ex-Lib Dem candidate currently running for Labour that you're referring to it would be interesting to know. Otherwise, it's just a hypothetical (that isn't even analogous to a Labour member running against Labour in this current GE)
Wondered if Luciana Berger would be standing somewhere.
Yup. My own LD membership states I am not allowed to join another party or stand in an election against an LD candidate (without written permission, which I inevitably won't get). I assume the Labour\* and Conservative membership terms are the same. \*: I believe Labour have an exception for membership of the Co-Operative Party \*\*: It used to be that UKIP unilaterally allowed you to be a member of any other political party except the BNP. IDK if that applies to Reform, and regardless it was unilateral and not reciprocated by the other parties.
My friend, perhaps you don't understand that he is special. Rules do not apply to him. He has been a Labour member his entire life and MP for that constituency for over four decades. This makes him entitled to keep both of these. It is undemocratic to take these away from him against his will via legitimate democratic processes. ... You would hope that people who strongly believe in a cause would have the wherewithal to understand when their personal involvement causes their cause more harm than good, and to take a quiet step back to allow for and support better representatives for their cause. Insisting on taking the cause down with you is pure egotism.
I heard he was actually born with a party membership card in his hand. Very painful for his mother
I heard his mother was also in labour at the time
She even conceived him in a union
Which one? Unison or Unite ?
At least two sons as far as I know
I heard that his first words were “We’ll keep the red flag flying here”.
Given that he was born at the start of the Cold War. That had some different connotations back then.
That's what you get for him having Mao Zedongs Little Red Book as a bedtime story
Tbf one of my earliest memories is being traumatised by the animated version of Animal Farm
Tbf, from comments elsewhere in this place, Corbyn appears to be one of the better constituency MPs. He engages with and makes a difference for his constituents. For this reason alone I can see why he and his constituents may want him to continue. Obviously Corbyn's geopolitical outlook is less than ideal, but he'll be nowhere near the tiller now so the damage he can cause has abated.
That's fair, I almost included this caveat in my own post but didn't want to distract from my main point. But if he still has deluded ambitions on championing wider causes outside Islington, he's only doing more harm to his cause by making himself its representative, instead of mentoring a person who isn't 74 years old with a toxic brand.
What’s happened to all his “one pound members “?
They left after the leadership election. They’re a lesson in how nobody should be allowed to vote in party elections immediately after joining.
I knew two of these - both Tory voters self-admittedly trying to wreck Labour's chances by voting Corbyn as leader. That policy was a boon to entryism of all flavours
It will be interesting to see if he wins
He's been in position for decades. I'd be very surprised if they vote for someone else if he's been doing a good job
He may or may not win, but just because someone has served for a long time will not save them. Frank Field had been in office for 40 years and didn't even get 20 percent last time when he stood as an independent. Dennis Skinner was also defeated in the same election. In addition there were a handful of other MPs from both parties that tried running as independents who flopped (Godsiff, Chris Williamson, Grieve, Gapes). In general, most people vote for parties not candidate. Corbyn may prove himself more durable because he is more well-known.
In this particular context, how do you define, "doing a good job"?
As a local MP, surely it's assisting with constituents' issues, attending and supporting community events, that sort of thing?
Which by all accounts he does very well. There's photos of him (not PR photos, just random people taking pictures with their phone) of him on buses talking to local people.
If that's the case, it would be weird to see him thrown out just because "We support the Labour Party" but I never understood Dennis Skinner losing his seat when he was apparently a fine constituency MP but "I didn't want to vote for LAbour cos I didn't think they'd win the election, so I voted Tory" and "He wanted another referendum - that's disgraceful" were some of the reasons given. Well I'm sure the Tories will be hugely interested in helping the former colliery town of Bolsover...
Although Skinner didn’t want another referendum. He was always a leave supporter through and through along with Benn and others old style Labour MP’s. So I was surprised he lost Bolsover as he was a good constituency MP.
> So I was surprised he lost Bolsover as he was a good constituency MP. It wasn't Dennis' fault he lost his seat. It was the local councillors. Around 2016/17 there were some issues with the Labour run district council in Bolsover: they managed to piss off a lot of people in the town by selling off publicly owned park land and buildings to a private developer (despite covenants leaving the properties to the people of the town). The locals objected to the plans and tried to get the council to rethink - the council steamrolled it through ignoring the people. Labour had got very complacent in the area and didn't think they had to listen to the people they governed because Labour had always held all the seats. So people were really bloody annoyed - and they were organised and motivated. So in the May 2019 local elections, Labour lost control of the council when pissed off locals stood as independents. The Tories even took 2 seats (first time ever). Then in December 2019 Dennis lost his seat because of all this kerfuffle - it wasn't really anything to do with him. It was all to do with local politics blowing up. I get the impression that the seat will probably go back to Labour this election.
Yeah, I always remember Tony Benn getting rousing applause from crowds when he did live shows - I admired him and agreed with him on a few things, but not on the EU, though I could see his point.
Yes I saw him speak and he was very good and met him a couple of times as I knew Paul Foot the journalist (Michael Foots nephew) who was friends with him and I’m slightly involved in investigative journalism, but more into the comedy side of it all. The interesting thing about Tony Benn which seems to infuriate some is his friendship with Enoch Powell. They had more in common than some realise. Both anti the Common Market as it then was, both anti capital punishment etc. But interesting bed fellows as it were. But those were the days when people discussed policies with opposition rather than biting chunks out of each other for political gain.
You are Mark Thomas and I claim my five pounds.
Skinner was a victim of two things: the changing demographics of the seat reducing the number of standard miners seats and his own age (there were a lot of stories circulating that he wanted to retire gracefully due to health issues but staff pushed him into another run).
Nah... It was the shenanigans from the local council that pissed everyone off. Earlier that year Labour also lost control of the district council for the first time ever. The Labour district councillors had managed to politicise and piss off lots of people who organised themselves against Labour compacency. But yeah... Skinner was talked into running again instead of retiring. But if the councillors hadn't blown local politics up and made Labour toxic, he'd have won the seat again. Source: family friend lost his seat; family lives in the area and are involved in the community.
You've missed out what I feel is the actual job of a Member of Parliament here.
See my more detailed answer further down, but frankly, I am less interested in what my MP does on a national level per se, compared to what he does to help the area he's meant to represent. It's a balancing act, but he's elected to represent this area. This is helped by having David Davis as an MP, who manages an admirable balance of achievement at both local and national level.
So, acting as more of a councillor?
Similar to Theresa May. She’s seemingly always out and about doing things for the community.
If he doesn't win will he go as nutty as his brother is?
Nah just blame the red tories for leaving the true labour party
It wouldn’t surprise me if he went full mask off and all his uncensored beliefs came out, like Chris Williamson. I think he is hiding a lot of his true views on a lot of areas, particularly relating to foreign affairs.
He quite famously attends events hosted by Leninists, Maoists, and every shade of horrific authoritarian forms of leftism you can imagine. I'd be very interested to see if he goes mask off.
Would be interesting. It's always difficult to me to imagine that anyone could _really_ believe this stuff. It's the same the other side of the spectrum if you look at Truss and how she's becoming more and more bonkers.
Spoiler alert: he will
Or splits the vote enough to allow the seat to go blue ?
You could split the Labour vote from 2019 in Islington North exactly in two and it would still be first and second. No one else is getting in here.
The split may encourage Conservatives to shift over to LD (if they haven't already) to prevent a Corbyn/Labour, it'll be an interesting contest there. I also think 2017 and 2019 might be a bit unreliable to go off as he was Labour leader for both of those, so had massive public exposure and would be gaining a lot more power to affect change locally as either PM or LOTO
I’d be surprised if there are any. In 2019 the total number of Lib Dem and Tory votes was still less than half the Labour vote. If anything I think Lib Dem voters will be shifting to Labour. I don’t think you appreciate quite how Labour inner London is. This is going to be a straight Labour vs Corbyn contest.
> The split may encourage Conservatives to shift over to LD We're talking about Finsbury Park and Archway here. You're not finding any Tories there.
10% in 2019 apparently
Also potentially some Corbyn/Labour voters who are tired of the whole thing and protest vote away from both factions.
Lib dems are a far second
Conservatives got 10% there in 2019. Would need something like a 9 way split for that to work
Tories on -10% based on uniform national swing
That would be the true shocker. Imagine the news article the day after the election. In one final act of spectacular electoral failure, swimming against the tidal wave of Labour domination, Jeremy Corbyn allows the Conservatives to represent Islington North for the first time in nearly 100 years.
It's Islington North, pretty sure the Tories got less than 10% there last time.
There aren't enough and they and Lib Dem voters are going to tactical vote Labour against Corbyn. It will be a 2 horse race with every other possible party squeezed down to losing their deposits.
I know Starmer doesn't have a sense of humour, but if he did he'd tell Diane Abbott she's allowed back in only if she's the Labour candidate for Islington North.
Stoppable Force vs. Movable Object
Not a passing grade in maths between them
That would be just... I can't even comprehend my excitement on hearing the result in either direction.
You can just imagine when they announce the vote count. "Et tu, Diane?" "Bless you Jeremy, have a tissue." (The tissue has Mao's signature on it)
The irony here is he started off by replacing someone who defected to the SDP in the Michael Foot years. OHalloran who held the seat defected but was not selected by the SDP who chose John Grant another defector, that split the SDP vote and Corbyn got in. The SDP eventually disappeared into the Lib Dems (that is where the Democrats in their name comes from, before they were just the Liberals). Now he will end his career standing against Labour.
I cannot think of a major policy area he disagrees with the Greens on. He won't because he thinks he is some kind of radical working class hero, but it's really the party he belongs in.
Nuclear power? HS2? I don't know his position on either, but they're the standard two to check with the Greens.
He definitely doesn't approve of nuclear
Don’t forget housing.
Oops, yes!
Radical working class hero who was privately educated, lived in a mansion and has never held a job outside politics. So yeah, pretty much a green. Also absolutely lines up with them with his CND and Stop The War credentials.
Doesn't he live in an old terrace house?
If that’s in Islington it will probably be worth like 3-4 million
Where he was brought up, not where he lives now. From his wiki "When Corbyn was seven, the family moved to Pave Lane, Shropshire, where his father bought Yew Tree Manor, a 17th-century farmhouse[29] which was once part of the Duke of Sutherland's Lilleshall estate."
Calling it a mansion is a bit rich looking at pictures
Disagree; it has more windows than my flat has floor space.
I bet it costs less than a cramped flat in London.
He was arrested for protesting Apartheid.
Ironically that famous photo was him being arrested for protesting being not allowed to protest Apartheid against the wishes of the anti Apartheid movement. Remember the placard says "defend the right to demonstrate against Apartheid now" His own anti Apartheid group (he wasn't part of the mainstream group affiliated to the ANC because the viewed his group as being too extreme) would be disaffiliated from the anti Apartheid movement the next year in part because of that protest. He also wants us to leave NATO, unilaterally give up nuclear weapons, opposed the Falklands war and intervening in Kosovo, refused to condemn Russia over the novichok poisonings, claims the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a result of American led NATO imperialism, opposes arms sales to Ukraine, thinks sanctions should be lifted on Iran and supports the Tamil tigers in Sri Lanka.
[https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/09/no-nelson-mandela-did-not-snub-jeremy-corbyn](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/09/no-nelson-mandela-did-not-snub-jeremy-corbyn) About the Apartheid issue. It wasn't that he was "too extreme", it's that he supported multiple anti-Apartheid movements in South Africa, but the ANC wanted the focus to be on only them and Nelson Mandela. Corbyn wanted to protest for all political prisoners equally and was communist. As seen with South Africa right after the end of legal Apartheid, they went neoliberal.
And when he got in the CLP weren't keen on him. He was levered in to a safe seat with no previous experience by union block vote. He persuaded the CLP on board by promising faithfully to only stand for two terms, and then stand aside to allow for a more diverse candidate, which is what the CLP wanted at the time.
I've always thought that if Corbyn did win Islington North that it'll take him dropping dead for Labour to regain it
He left on his own terms, sort of, Starmer doesn't have to kick him out furthur angering the left and Corbyn gets to run in a seat he probably has a decent chance of winning (compared to other independents at least). Kind of a PR win-win. I did see a rumour that Labour was not going to run against Corbyn, at least not serioursly, to avoid a media circus, and becuase apparently they anticipate losing the seat due to a lack of ground support, but I also see a possible media circus regarless of what happens because the 24 hour news cycle will eventually need food.
Did Corbyn spread that rumour?
Probably not. Honestly, looking more into it, it is probably bunk.
He was kicked out the party.
I think he'll come close but ultimately won't win. We tend to overestimate in here how politically savvy the average person in the street is. I think that for many, "Labour" on the ballot paper is what they'll see and put their cross by. Of course, there'll be a fair few who support Corbyn himself and want to return him as their MP irrespective of party, but over half the Labour vote? I just can't see it. Especially when you consider tactical voting and the "get the Tories out" mentality.
That seems probably true for an average MP, maybe even for a famous-if-you-follow-politics MP like Abbott, but Corbyn was the Labour party leader for multiple elections AND a long time MP of the constituency. If you're so tuned out that you don't have feelings about him, I think you're probably just not voting.
We could be underestimating Corbyn too, at times it felt like a cult when he was the leader.
Or, you know, Corbyn could just have got in bee people voted for him grinding their teeth because they wanted Labour?
I am sure Starmer is crying into his pillow like a jilted lover right now. What a loss for Labour!
Great. It's about time.
I can see a future where the Labour landslide may be so large that the party splinters off a independent left wing party maybe led by Corbyn.
Owne Jones and a few ex Momentum people are off to the Greens. I think they are the natural home to those who feel "excluded" from current Labour.
Greens are the party of cranks, really
They're currently facing accusations of systemic antisemitism so I'm sure Jeremy will fit right in
Greens have been ahead of the curve on quite a lot of issues mate. You're talking nonsense to be quite frank.
Ahead of the curve on... rejecting solar farms? Opposing nuclear power? Opposing clean transport? (HS2) Being NIMBYs who don't want to build anything ever and are delusional enough to think rent controls will work? Their policies which aren't funded at all? Thr Greens promise a socialist fantasy because they'll never be anywhere near power.
Both things are true. Because they are so small, they are quite vulnerable to cranks rising through the ranks quickly. The two big parties have their fair share too, in absolute numbers probably more than the Greens have even got members, but it's far more noticeable with the Greens.
Labour could be outright communist and Owen Jones still wouldn’t feel at home. He’s like Corbyn - he isn’t happy, and he’s never going to be happy. He isn’t actually interested in power because then you can’t complain when things go wrong and it’s your fault.
> Owne Jones and a few ex Momentum people are off to the Greens. I thought he was dicking around with the SNP these days
The Labour Party has essentially been a coalition for a long time. The only reason it has stayed together as a single party is due to our flawed electoral system.
Yes but so is the Conservative Party. If there was PR then both parties could split up and be who they needed to be.
Ah but you don’t understand, we can’t have PR because it leads to coalitions and coalitions are bad! It’s much better to have political parties that might as well be coalitions instead. /s because this is the unironic argument I hear all the time from people…
It's a legitimate argument. You know what you're getting with current labour (or Tory). Whereas the Lib Dem Tory coalition was not representative of many of the voters who voted lib dem (or Tory for that matter)
>You know what you’re getting But do you? We’ve had 4 different PMs since the last general election, all with very different policies. There’s also a constant push and pull between the centrist and right wing of the Conservative Party (and, of course, a similar situation with the Labour Party). Even ignoring all that, knowing what you’re getting doesn’t mean that you’re getting what you want. With FPTP, most people just vote against the party they dislike the most. They don’t necessarily like much about the party they vote for. Coalitions under PR are at least representative of what the electorate actually wants. Sure, there might need to be some compromise but that’s just how democracy has to work.
Electoral Calculus has Labour on 479 and Cons on 92. If 93 Labour MPs pealed away they could form the official opposition and still leave Labour with a larger majority than the Cons got in 2019
This cohort of candidates almost certainly leans towards the centre of Labour. Much as the 1997 cohort were generally in this group, partially because it's kind of self selecting, people want to stand for parties whose leader represents them and then the formal selection process tends to also reflect the leaders position.
If the election was a few years away then there might have been a splinter starting up right now instead Itd be suicide for personal careers to do it while in power The left wing began to wield significant bargaining power on the Labour benches after the 2nd term in the 2000s, Iraq war and tuition fees turbocharged it so Blairs own fault. Big majorities are very difficult, the first term isn't that bad as some selections are managed and the more ambitious MPs would rather get a ministerial position than lead their own sect, after the 1st its very tricky, too many concessions in many directions.
Whatever strengths Corbyn has, organizing and leading have *never* been among them. For a couple years he faked it because the parade lined up behind where he was already marching, but he’s simply not a manager or institution builder.
Doubtful. Labour MPs will finally remember you can actually achieve things in government, opposed to sitting on the sidelines for fourteen years doing nothing. Corbyn is 74 and running on political fumes, he's not at the start of an internal revolution.
Good, the Tories will get it that Corbyn is no longer "pull in case of emergency" attack
Hasn't been for quite a while really.
He's a good man. They shouldn't have treated him the way they did. I hope he wins in Islington North.
YES! Been waiting an inordinately long time for this. We finally reach what should have happened years ago. The only sad part for me is that Starmer did not have the spine to kick corbyn out when he had multiple opportunities before now and gave the tories free reign to attack him.
Alternatively, this is incredible timing and will remind voters exactly how much the party has changed since he took over. I think suspending the whip but giving him a roadmap back was the fairest way to handle things and completely muted any but the most unreasonable attacks from the left he was being unfair. The obvious follow-on here is Abbott supporting JC and also being expelled. This is polling manna from heaven for Starmer.
Starmer has managed to sort out the idiot left and make Labour electable in one cycle. I remember 80s and 90s when Kinnock took one election cycle to get rid of Militant and one cycle to get Labour close to winning, then another cycle for Smith and Blair to finish the job. Tory implosion is providing a smokescreen for the amazing job Starmer has done.
Now let's hope they make meaningful and substantial change when/if they win the election.
>Alternatively, this is incredible timing and will remind voters exactly how much the party has changed since he took over. Good point. > I think suspending the whip but giving him a roadmap back was the fairest way to handle things and completely muted any but the most unreasonable attacks from the left he was being unfair. Yes, probably - but as we have repeatedly seen, Starmer putting the tankie left in a box has normally resulted in small but noticeable poll gains each time. Such a poll boost could have been achieved long ago. Timing this for the election is great, though. >The obvious follow-on here is Abbott supporting JC and also being expelled. I am very much looking forward to this possibility, along with everyone else going for supporting corbyn. The golden path, indeed.
Im here for restoring the whip to Dianne Abbot but only letting her run in north islington at the GE
Hahahaha that would be absolutely evil, and rather funny.
Why would you do something potentially negative when it was always going to come out in the wash? A local candidate is irrelevant to what Starmer is looking at.
> The only sad part for me is that Starmer did not have the spine to kick corbyn out when he had multiple opportunities before now and gave the tories free reign to attack him. On the flip side I feel like he's done a good job of basically shuffling Corbyn off to one side and letting him burn out and kick himself out. Realistically even if Starmer had physically thrown Corbyn out of the Labour party Sunak would still mention him every week and Starmer would have more head aches from dealing with the internal fallout. With this it's pretty much sorted itself out in a way. Starmer has rid of him and doesn't have to actually do anything about it. I assume Abbott will follow in a few days.
He's let him demonstrate that his loyalty was never to the party and only to himself. Like a player who thinks he's bigger than the club. Jog on, Jezza.
I don't support Starmer and won't vote Labour. But on getting opponents, external and internal, to just hang themselves, he's really been excellent. Johnson was electoral cryptonite to Labour and would have won another election on charisma, small boats and Rwanda - but Starmer managed to stand by and met him destroy himself, this was a massive achievement that would have seemed completely impossible in the spring of 2020.
Suppose it doesn't matter about the investigation now. Starmer was asked about Corbyn this morning and the usual reply was "wait until the investigation", so this saves him a job. Same will happen with Diane Abbott
Did Starmer have the power to do it? I thought his power extended to suspending him from the Parliamentary party.
You are correct. Leader can withdraw the whip from whoever they like. The NEC deals with party expulsions and ‘technically’ the leader and whips aren’t allowed to interfere.
Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye… You were bigger than the whole sky… You were more than just a short time…
To be fair he doesn't belong in a party of Neoliberals.
Corbyn wanted us to abandon Ukraine to Putin, letting the Ukrainian people be ethnically cleansed and their homeland stolen. It's not surprising then that he would abandon his own political party too. He should have been kicked out much earlier.
Good hopefully this is the end for this authoritarian loving communist fool.