Will Jeremy Corbyn be able to run for Labour at the general election?

Standard-bearer of the left has been accused of accepting a £5,000 donation from a body regarded as a front for dissident ex-Labour supporters. Sean O’Grady wonders what the future holds for the former party leader

Time is running out for Jeremy Corbyn to build momentum as an independent MP (PA)

Former party leader and cult figure Jeremy Corbyn is facing expulsion from the Labour Party because he has accepted a donation of £5,000 from a body called “We Deserve Better” to support his “political activities”. Some Labour officials regard We Deserve Better as a front organisation for dissident ex-Labour supporters and members to back “independent” socialistic candidates at the next election, possibly including those representing the Greens and George Galloway’s Workers’ Party of Britain. Thus, We Deserve Better are supporting the Green Party’s Carla Denyer against shadow cabinet member Thangam Debbonaire in the Bristol Central constituency.

In response to the revelations, Wes Streeting, shadow health secretary and long-time hammer of the left, declared that Mr Corbyn in any case would not be an official Labour candidate nor an MP in the next parliament. Labour Party rules state that any member “declaring an intention to stand in a public election in opposition to a party candidate” faces automatic exclusion from the party. That justification for expelling Mr Corbyn is seemingly a bit of a stretch at the moment, but such is Sir Keir Starmer’s grip that it can’t be ruled out.

Is this significant?

Yes. Only a little over four years ago Mr Corbyn was the man leading the Labour Party as their candidate for prime minister. He’d won a clear mandate, twice, from the party membership, and had led the party to near victory in 2017, albeit followed by ignominious defeat in 2019. For many he was an unlikely but inspirational prophet. His fall has been remarkable, but while his enemies have been relentless in wanting to expunge his influence, he hasn’t proved very adept at protecting his own position – too stubborn, or principled, to compromise with the present leadership.

To find a former leader of any major party being effectively expelled on political grounds, you have to go back to 1931. That was when the Labour leader and prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, betrayed the party and joined with the Conservatives to join a national government. Ramsay became head of the short-lived National Labour Party, and was expelled from Labour.

Is Corbyn a Labour MP or not?

Mr Corbyn lost the Labour whip, ie membership of the parliamentary Labour Party, in October 2020, and remains suspended. He had refused to accept fully the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings into antisemitism in the party. Mr Corbyn had argued that antisemitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”.

His individual party membership was also suspended then but restored in November 2020, so Mr Corbyn remains, for the time being, a member of the Labour Party. So he is a member of the Labour Party and is sitting as the independent MP for Islington North, having been elected, of course, as a Labour Party candidate.

Why can’t the Islington North constituency select who they want as candidate?

Normally they can, and this is what they have been doing ever since they embraced the then youthful disciple of Tony Benn back in 1983. However, apart from the fact that Sir Keir makes no secret of his opposition to Mr Corbyn, the National Executive Committee has ruled that Mr Corbyn cannot stand as an official Labour Party candidate at the general election, and has opened up nominations for someone else to do so in Islington.

Thus far those to put themselves forward are Christian Wolmar, a transport journalist and rail expert, Paul Mason, also a journalist who is a former Newsnight correspondent, and Praful Nargund, a local councillor. Diane Abbott, in nearby Hackney North and Stoke Newington, faces similar obstacles.

Will Corbyn run as an independent?

We don’t know but time is running short if Mr Corbyn wants to build momentum. Taking his socialist heroes as a guide, he could emulate Benn, who refused to contemplate any such move. Interestingly, Mr Corbyn passed up the opportunity to challenge Sadiq Khan for the London mayoralty, although this would probably have ended up letting the otherwise hopeless Tory, Susan Hall, in, and a considerable backlash against him for splitting the progressive vote.

Alternatively, the precedent of Ken Livingstone might present a different course of action to Mr Corbyn. Blocked by Tony Blair and the party machine from running to be mayor of London on behalf of Labour in 2000, Mr Livingstone reneged on countless promises that he would not run against a Labour candidate. He won convincingly over the official (and unwilling) Labour nominee, Frank Dobson. As with Mr Livingstone at that time, Mr Corbyn may calculate that he will eventually be allowed back into the party, as “Red Ken” was by Blair in 2004. If Mr Corbyn wants more examples of famous principled Labour figures who found themselves temporarily “independent”, he can cite the distinguished examples of Nye Bevan, Stafford Cripps and Michael Foot (albeit long before he became leader).

Could Corbyn win as an independent?

Yes. Having been an MP for 40 years, with the national profile of a former leader, Mr Corbyn can count on a considerable “personal” vote. This will inevitably be enhanced by disillusion in some quarters with Sir Keir’s attitude to the war in Gaza. At the 2019 general election Mr Corbyn secured a majority of 26,188 with a 64.3 per cent share of the vote. He could lose almost half of his vote to an official Labour candidate and still win the seat, and that’s assuming the Green Party (who got 8 per cent) don’t stand aside for Mr Corbyn.

What about Corbyn teaming up with George Galloway?

They were both once on the left wing of the Labour Party, both first elected in the 1980s, despised by the Blairites and sharing common beliefs – anti-EU, pro-Palestinian socialists bitterly opposed to the war in Iraq. When Mr Galloway got elected as MP for Rochdale in February, on behalf of his own Workers’ Party of Britain, he spoke warmly of his old friend and comrade, and suggested that Mr Corbyn should place himself as leader of a new socialist grouping, in which Mr Galloway would be his loyal lieutenant: “He must avoid being a wasting asset. He is a very considerable asset and everyone loves him. But he should be careful that he doesn’t waste the remaining opportunity that he has.

“If he won’t, we will run ourselves – we’ll support independence where we don’t run ourselves ... but we will be weaker because of the absence of Jeremy Corbyn at the head of it.”

Since then, Mr Corbyn has dismissed the idea, and Mr Galloway has had second thoughts about Mr Corbyn joining the Workers’ Party of Britain: “I’m not sure he’d get in, with some of his views,” he said. “Corbyn is a slightly naive, slightly liberal, small-L individual.”