Jeremy Corbyn: Labour to vote on banning ex-leader standing as candidate

27 March 2023, 12:12 BST

Updated 48 minutes ago

Labour’s governing body is set to vote on proposals to officially ban Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate at the next general election.

Sir Keir Starmer has tabled a motion at Tuesday’s meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) that would prevent the party endorsing Mr Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn is suspended from being a Labour MP and sits as an independent following a row over antisemitism.

The former Labour leader said he was “not going anywhere”.

The BBC understands that Jeremy Corbyn is considering running as an independent candidate in Islington North if he is blocked from becoming the Labour candidate.

In a statement, Mr Corbyn criticised the the Labour leader, claiming Sir Keir “has broken his commitment to respect the rights of Labour members and denigrated the democratic foundations of our party”.

“I joined the Labour Party when I was 16 years old because, like millions of others, I believed in a redistribution of wealth and power,” he added.

“Our message is clear: we are not going anywhere. Neither is our determination to stand up for a better world.”

Last month, Sir Keir announced that Mr Corbyn would not be a Labour candidate, confirming months of speculation.

The NEC has the power to endorse, or not endorse, a candidate selected for election.

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, said Sir Keir “has rightly shown leadership” in moving to block Mr Corbyn.

“I think what Keir Starmer has made very clear is that the Labour Party has changed and in particular we changed in terms of tackling antisemitism,” she said.

“Every single member needs to take that seriously, and that is part of the standards that are expected of every single candidate as well.”

Momentum, the left-wing campaign group set up to support Mr Corbyn when he was Labour leader, accused Sir Keir of being “drunk on power” and condemned what the group called a “venal and duplicitous act from Keir Starmer, which further divides the Labour Party and insults the millions of people inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership”.

It added: “We urge all NEC representatives to reject this anti-democratic manoeuvre tomorrow – it should be for Islington North Labour members to decide their candidate.”

Mr Corbyn led Labour to defeat in the 2017 and 2019 general elections but remains a popular figure with many on the left of the party. From 2016, Sir Keir was a key member of his shadow cabinet, speaking for the party on Brexit.

Mr Corbyn has represented his constituency of Islington North as a Labour MP since 1983 until his suspension in October 2020.

The NEC readmitted Mr Corbyn to the Labour Party as a member in November 2020 – though he is still blocked from representing the party in Parliament.

Mr Corbyn was suspended as a Labour MP by Sir Keir for saying, in his response to the 2020 EHRC report, that the scale of antisemitism within Labour had been”dramatically overstated” by his opponents and much of the media.

He also said antisemitism was “absolutely abhorrent” and “one antisemite is one too many” in the party.

The EHRC launched its inquiry in May 2019, after receiving complaints about antisemitism within the party.

It found Labour had breached the Equality Act by failing to provide adequate training for staff dealing with allegations, and because of “political interference” from Mr Corbyn’s office in the handling of those complaints.

Labour was ordered to draw up a plan to improve its complaints process, which it did in December 2020.

This committed the party to setting up an independent process to handle complaints, putting together a handbook for staff handling complaints, and improving training.

In February, EHRC chief executive Marcial Boo said the watchdog was now “content with the actions taken” by the party after winding up a two-year monitoring process at the end of January.