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LONDON — Labour’s former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, will run against his own party in the U.K.’s snap election.
The veteran left-winger MP — barred from running for Labour again by successor Keir Starmer — took the plunge Friday and confirmed he will instead run as an independent in his London constituency of Islington North in the July 4 vote.
In a video posted Friday, Corbyn said: “I believe in democracy. I want our political parties to be democratic, but members of Islington North Labour have been denied the right to choose their own candidate.
“We have to stand up and say we’re not taking this anymore. We will assert our rights.”
Corbyn led Labour from 2015 to 2020, fighting two elections in which he pulled his party to the left. Party membership soared, but Corbyn presided over Labour’s worst election result since 1935.
He was suspended by his successor Starmer in October 2020 for his response to a report by Britain’s equality watchdog investigating antisemitism in the party. It found “serious failings” in how Corbyn’s office handled complaints of anti-Jewish abuse.
Speaking after the report, Corbyn said “the scale of the problem” had been “dramatically overstated” by political opponents and the media and insisted his team had been “always determined to eliminate all forms of racism.”
Though his Labour suspension was lifted in November 2020, Starmer declined to readmit him into the parliamentary party. Despite serving in Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Brexit Secretary, Starmer has strongly distanced the party from Corbyn’s leadership and the party’s National Executive Committee has barred him from standing for Labour candidate.
The ex-Labour leader won the seat with a majority of more than 26,000 in 2019 even with his party’s landslide defeat.
While he’s represented the constituency for 41 years, taking the Labour safe seat will be a challenge.
“I hope those people that have always supported Labour and indeed are members of the Labour Party will understand that I’m here to represent and serve the people of Islington North on the same principles I’ve always had as the MP for this area,” he said Friday.
“This is going to be a campaign with an awful lot thrown at us. I’m ready for that. And I know everybody else is ready for that.”
