Jeremy Corbyn at The World Transformed festival

JEREMY Corbyn criticised the number of big business sponsors of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool this week.

The Islington North MP did not apply for a pass and instead was a speaker at The World Transformed festival in the city.

It runs parallel to the main Labour conference each year and is a forum for left-wing ideas.

He told an event called Music for the Many, on Sunday night, that there were too many corporate interests inside the secure zone trying to get close to Sir Keir Starmer and the party’s leadership.

“I think you’ll see the way in which influences go on this week in Liverpool when there’s no end of corporate lobbyists hanging around the Labour Party conference,” he said.

“They hang around and invite people into their many feeding troughs around Westminster all the year round.

“Politics should be about popular movements. Politics should be about the voice of ordinary people; should be about the voice of organised labour – not corporate lobbyists.”

Over the course of the four-day conference, fringe event sponsors include missile manufacturers Boeing and Babcock, the controver­sial spy-tech firm Palantir, private healthcare firms, and banks.

After speaking, Mr Corbyn doubled down on this sentiment, releasing a statement on social media that said: “As the Labour leadership rolls out the red carpet for climate vandals, arms firms and private healthcare, thousands of us are organising for the bold change this country needs. We will keep campaigning for social justice and peace. We are the movement for the many, not the few.”

Mr Corbyn had the Labour whip removed in 2020 and, although still a member of the party, he sits as an independent MP. Labour members in Islington North have said they deserve to choose who stands for the party in the constituency at the next general election but Mr Starmer has banned Mr Corbyn through a motion at the party’s national executive committee. This has led to speculation he will stand for election as independent. He has been the area’s MP for more than 40 years and always returned with large majorities.

Mr Corbyn’s office said he did not attend Labour’s conference as he was busy with commitments, including an appearance speaking up for refugees at the Council of Europe.

“I remain extremely grateful for the incredible support that I have received from members of Islington North Labour Party,” Mr Corbyn said. “It is local members who are the soul of our movement, and who continue to campaign for the transformative solutions this country needs.”

Labour has not yet selected an alternative candidate.

When asked by the Tribune if he plans to run again, he said: “I’m proud to campaign alongside the people of Islington North for a redistribution of wealth and power.

“Forty years ago I made a promise to my constituents that I would always speak up on their behalf for peace, justice and democracy.”

So this is where all the champagne got drunk

“BIG business is swarming into the Labour Party conference,” the former shadow minister Sam Tarry observes at a packed fringe meeting on Sunday night, writes Anna Lamche.

And it’s true: this year’s Labour Party conference is reminiscent of a corporate marketing event, with meetings sponsored by energy, insurance and payday loan companies.

Journalists joked they have enjoyed more champagne here than at the Tory conference in Manchester the weekend before.

The secure zone is populated by men and women in sharp trouser suits and polished shoes. “Ordinary” members who eschew suit and tie prove hard to spot among the sea of consultants and lobbyists in uniform.

Journalists lick their fingers and feel the political wind has changed. Predictably, national papers are churning out flattering profiles of would-be ministers. Members of the shadow cabinet obligingly answer easy questions from the broadcast media.

When so many in the press pack source their scoops from late-night WhatsApp messages sent by ministers, the fear of losing access is palpable. The centre of gravity has shifted. Some hacks go looking for Jeremy Corbyn – he is both consigned to history according to his critics and chased for his opinion every week – only to find he hasn’t even applied for a conference pass.

The speeches on the main stage are serious and businesslike. Sir Keir Starmer does not “doubt that the fire of change still burns in Britain”.

The whole production is designed to indicate that Starmer is the continuity candidate. He embodies the comforting fantasy that we might return to so-called “grown-up” politics, before a series of global shocks – the end of cheap energy, the pandemic and Brexit – destabilised the nation-state.

Former party staffers who worked for his predecessor float around the edges of the conference in new jobs, observing proceedings with a mixture of resignation and despair.

This Labour conference has been about getting ‘the establishment’ – big business, the media, and middle England – on side.

And, for now, it seems they have been convinced.

But it is not yet clear whether the ordinary people of this country will fall in line, convinced by the Union Jack flags draped over every available surface.

It’s an obvious a turning point in British history, but even a handful of Mr Starmer’s admirers wonder if he has really offered a radical programme capable of rising to the occasion.

Expectations among the electorate will need to be carefully managed after a general election win, more so if the plan is a steady maintenance of a status quo – or a more competent version of what we already have.

We saw last week where the trapdoor lies if people’s lives are not swiftly improved, as Nigel Farage circled the Conservatives.

WITH poll ratings suggesting Labour are heading for a landslide victory at the next general election, a large group of Islington councillors were up in Merseyside hearing what Sir Keir Starmer and his front bench colleagues are planning once they secure power.