Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn

SIR Keir Starmer has taken another swipe at Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn – but Labour was this week accused of lacking the guts to name a candidate to stand in the ­constituency

With a general election looming, the party has been finalising candidates in a host of areas around the country but still won’t say who will be on the ballot paper here.

Members in Islington North have already warned that they do not want a candidate forced on them and that card carriers should get a vote on who stands. When it was first announced Mr Corbyn – the constituency’s MP for more than four decades – would be barred, they said that decision should have been made by the local party membership.

Still being asked about Mr Corbyn’s future by the News Agents podcast, Mr Starmer said last week that he “won’t stand as a Labour MP at the next election or any election”, adding “His [Mr Corbyn’s] days as a Labour MP are over. We have a changed party.”

Mr Starmer had stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr Corbyn at the past two elections serving in the shadow cabinet as the party’s Brexit lead when Mr Corbyn was leader. But after telling the country to make him the prime minister, Mr Starmer struck a different tone when he became leader himself.

He removed the whip from Mr Corbyn – leaving him as an independent MP – after comments made in the wake of an investigation into how anti-Semitism within the Labour Party had been handled.

Local members call for a say in who stands for Labour

Mr Corbyn said in response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings hat “one anti-Semite is one too many” and that he supported the report’s recommendations for change, but added that “the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents both inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”.

Barnsbury councillor Praful Nargund has been named by several insider sources as the most likely Labour candidate in Islington North. He has not responded to a request for comment.

But Bunhill councillor Phil Graham said:“I think if they have someone in mind and if they’ve chosen someone already, or if they’re going to parachute someone in, then they should have the guts to open up and say who’s going to be standing.

He added: “Whoever is going to stand in that seat, then they’re nothing more than a scab. Trying to do the job of someone who’s been prevented from doing it by their employer is scab behaviour.”

In a statement to the Tribune, Mr Corbyn said: “In the face of unprecedented suffering and despair, it is shameful that the Labour leadership would rather attack the democratic rights of party members than listen to our demands for peace and sustainability.”

He also issued his strongest hint he could run as an independent.

“When I was first elected as the MP for Islington North in 1983, I made a promise to stand alongside my constituents no matter what was thrown our way,” he said.

“In Islington North, we keep our promises, and we will not be silenced in our efforts to build a more equal and peaceful world. Ultimately, there is only one reason why the Labour leadership are so afraid of local democracy: they know that when we come together, we can win.”

Ken Muller, who used to teach at Islington Green School and is an active NEU trade unionist, said: “Starmer has sacrificed Jeremy and stabbed him in the back in order to boost his own position in British politics. I think he’s used Corbyn as a personification of what he doesn’t want the Labour Party to be because he wants the Labour Party to be respectable and acceptable to big business.”

The Tribune made several attempts to speak to the Labour Party but we received no response.