It’s hard to find a part of the country more dominated by Labor than the London seat of Islington North. However, if you ask Labor which candidate they will support at the next election, there are nerves, hesitation and hushed tones.
Jeremy Corbyn, the local MP in the seat for the past 39 years, is currently an independent MP after being stripped of the Labor whip. He retains significant local support, but if he decides to stand as an independent candidate at the next election, every Labor member in the seat will face a choice: campaign for the party’s candidate or campaign for Corbyn and risk being kicked out.
A number of Labor figures in the seat have spoken to the Observer about the current impasse but, in a sign of the tensions and paranoia the situation has generated, they have all spoken on condition of anonymity. “If the whip is not restored, people will be forced to make a decision about their support for Jeremy,” said a senior party figure in Corbyn’s seat.
“There are quite a few people who will support Jeremy. A lot of people have that view. Like many in the county, we are very disappointed and dejected that the party has taken the whip from us. This is all completely unnecessary.”
Corbyn was suspended from work in 2020 after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report found “serious failings in the leadership of the Labor party to tackle anti-Semitism”. Corbyn later claimed that the scale of anti-Semitism had been “dramatically exaggerated”. He has since been readmitted to the party, but current leader Keir Starmer has refused to restore the Labor whip.
Starmer is being urged by some of his leaders to oust Corbyn, given Rishi Sunak’s attack that Starmer once served under Corbyn and effectively campaigned to make him Prime Minister. However, in reality there is little incentive to deal with the situation soon and no decision on Corbyn’s status is expected imminently.
Jeremy Corbyn at the Labor Party conference in Brighton, 2021. Picture: Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar
Meanwhile, it has created a surreal atmosphere in the constituency. A group called Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn (IFJC) has been formed and has agreed to answer questions by email. “Individuals at the FIJC would prefer not to be identified due to the current climate,” he said. “The FIJC is not associated with the Labor Party and we do not ask people who participate in the campaign about membership of the Labor Party.
“Any scenario where Jeremy Corbyn is not the Labor candidate at the next election would be entirely the result of the actions of the Labor leadership. We hope they have the decency and common sense to do the right thing and restore the whip to Jeremy Corbyn. It’s not too late to see sense and do the right thing.”
While Corbyn has a loyal band of supporters, other Labor figures in the seat said there was a large, silent group that would prefer a different candidate but could not say. “There’s a real cult of personality around him locally,” said one. “You’re talking about a group of 20- to 25-year-olds who are very protective of him and quite hostile to people who aren’t. So he has that. But it’s a minority view. That’s never been tried before . The choice of candidate is crucial. If the party can persuade someone who has local credibility to run, it can win.”
The tensions mean that good alternative candidates give the seat a wide margin. One potential candidate who said it would be a “dream seat” in other circumstances said the current impasse was putting him off.
“There’s no way I’m taking on Corbyn – I think he’s going to split the Labor group,” they said. “I’m not knocking it with a barge pole. It’s going to be quite a challenge for someone with the determination to fight for it. I still think the likelihood is that Labor will take the seat [if Corbyn runs as an independent]”.
Islington North is not the only subject of selection in London. Labor disbanded Kensington local select committee after allegations of anti-Semitism in the seat. It had already suspended the selection panel in Camberwell and Peckham, an ultra-safe seat currently held by Harriet Harman, after a prominent candidate was dropped from the shortlist. However, Corbyn’s profile means Islington North will be closely watched. Party insiders say “the ball is in Corbyn’s court” and he knows what steps he needs to take to restore the whip.
In a statement, Corbyn told the Observer: “I was elected as a Labor MP and I’m proud to be. I’m honored to be the full-time representative for Islington North and to tackle all the issues that our communities face. The whip was wrongly removed and should be restored. Thousands of people in Islington North agree, as they tell me repeatedly in person. In fact, they told me as much when I a request by the Labor party during the local elections”.
Another veteran of Islington North politics said that while there were big political divisions, it had always been like that. “The people are very polite, although politics is robust and ideologically divided,” he said. “People are intertwined in the lives of others. I think in the end, everyone involved will turn a blind eye to how people campaign.”