Inside Labour’s battle to stop Islington North members voting for Corbyn

A significant chunk of Labour members in Islington North will cut ties with Keir Starmer’s party to join a Jeremy Corbyn independent campaign, insiders believe.

The former leader who was ousted from the parliamentary party and banned from seeking re-election as a Labour member by Keir Starmer, is imminently expected to quit Labour and stand against his former party.

“We’re in no doubt that he is going to stand,” said one insider. Labour activists in the London constituency believe left-wingers from outside the area who have “scores to settle” with Starmer’s operation will flood the area in a bid to get Corbyn re-elected.

They expect the former leader will put Labour’s response to the Israel-Gaza conflict, which dented Starmer’s support in some areas at the local elections, front and centre of his campaign.

Supporters of the former leader believe the 74-year-old, who has been the MP since 1983, has a personal vote and can lean on long-term friendships to prop up his campaign, including that which he has with George Galloway, the Workers’ Party leader who snatched a by-election win in Rochdale earlier this year.

But with Labour maintaining a 20-point poll lead over the Conservatives, Corbyn will be swimming against the national tide in one of the party’s safest seats.

One party insider also suggested Corbyn was a “bit miffed” that Rishi Sunak called an earlier election as it leaves him with less time to lay out an anti-Labour campaign.

In the coming days, Labour members will choose from a shortlist of two would-be parliamentary candidates – Sem Moema and Praful Nargund – as part of a fast-tracked process, with the winner announced on June 1.

Moema was born in Islington to South African parents who fled apartheid and is London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s advisor on affordable housing. Nargund, meanwhile, is a social innovation entrepreneur who acts as a skills advisor to the party nationally and a councillor locally.

“It’s good that local members are being given a choice between two strong BAME candidates with local connections,” said one source, amid concern that imposing a candidate could have caused further ructions in the former leader’s local party.

Whichever of the duo prevails will be embarking on a battle expected to be one of the most bitterly-fought of the campaign.

Many on the left sympathetic to Corbyn are angry with his treatment by party bosses.

In the wake of a damning Equality and Human Rights Commission report in 2020, which found the party had harassed Jewish members, Corbyn was removed as a Labour MP after he claimed “the scale of the problem” of antisemitism allegations had been “dramatically overstated”.

He refused to apologise and has sat as an independent MP, while remaining a Labour member. Should he decide not to stand, even his membership may be in jeopardy, however, after it emerged he accepted a £5,000 donation from the We Deserve Better, a campaign set up to support independent and Green parliamentary candidates opposing Labour.

Insiders now expect any disciplinary process to be overtaken by a decision by Corbyn to stand. Opposing or supporting rival candidates is banned under the party’s rules and would have meant auto-expulsion.

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His long-time political ally John McDonnell, who served as his shadow chancellor, suggested in a broadcast interview with ITV’s Robert Peston that his former boss would make the race competitive.

“And I’ve said consistently all the way along that if he does run as an independent, he’s represented the constituency for decades, he’s got a lot of very personal support,” he said, adding that Corbyn will attract “a lot of the media focus”.

Corbyn will also be competing for left-wing votes with the Green Party candidate, Sheridan Kates, a software engineer who will campaign on Gaza, the cost of living, housing and the environment.

In 2019, the former leader secured a 48.7% share of the vote and a 26,188 vote majority. But despite a national figure at the time, the swing at the last election away from Labour in Islington North (11.8%) was higher than the party’s national average (7.9%).

Corbyn would need to peel away a significant proportion of Labour’s considerable vote to succeed as an independent today should he choose in the coming days to put himself forward.

The London Assembly votes, which were the last ballot box test for the area, saw Sadiq Khan grow his majority and Moema hold the North East assembly constituency, which covers Islington, with 50% of the vote for Labour.