Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a rally in defence of the NHS and services at the Whittington Hospital

JEREMY Corbyn has demanded that members should decide if he can stand for Labour at the next general election.

Without asking card-carriers in the constituency, party leader Sir Keir Starmer announced on Wednesday that Mr Corbyn would be barred from standing with a red Labour rosette again – despite his 40 years as the MP in Islington North.

Supporters immediately lined up to defend Mr Corbyn and accused Mr Starmer of abandoning a pledge to unite the party, as they warned against a scenario where he ends up standing as an independent candidate.

While the borough is always considered safe Labour territory, Mr Corbyn has one of the strongest personal votes in the House of Commons, knowing his patch inside out from his four decades in the job.

He has been forced to sit without the Labour whip on the opposition benches by Mr Starmer, who disciplined him for his response to the findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s investigation into how anti-Semitism was handled by the party and a verdict that the Equality Act had been breached. Throughout this time Mr Corbyn has been clear that he wants to stand for Labour again at the next election

When asked by the Tribune this week if Mr Starmer’s stance meant he would consider standing as an independent candidate, Mr Corbyn said: “Lots of people come up to me and say they are concerned by what’s happening – and I want to say thank you to all those who have shown their support over the past few days, and indeed over the last 40 years as their MP.”

He added: “Instead of answering hypothetical questions, I simply say this: Labour members – not party leaders – should be given the right to choose their own candidate. I’ll continue to fight for the democratic rights of local Labour members, and I’ll continue to stand up for vulnerable people right across the constituency.”

Mr Corbyn in his early days as an MP in the 1980s

Despite his status in the Commons, Mr Corbyn is still a member of the Labour Party and has talked of his loyalty to it since joining aged 16.

After succeeding Mr Corbyn as leader in 2020, Mr Starmer had given speeches in which he said they had been “friends” and he would be building on elements of his policies. But on Wednesday, in a new speech to mark the EHRC’s announcement that Labour was no longer considered in special measures, Mr Starmer effectively fired the gun on the search for a new candidate for Islington North and told anyone who did not like how he was transforming the party that “nobody is forcing you to stay”.

He said there would be zero tolerance towards anybody who downplayed the threat of anti-Semitism.

Mr Corbyn came close to winning power at the general election in 2017 but then watched a meltdown at a second one in 2019 which had been dominated by the issue of Brexit. Since then he has remained highly visible on local issues and was on the stage when Islington Labour launched its council election manifesto last April before another landslide victory at the polls.

Most of those winning councillors declined to comment on Mr Corbyn’s treatment this week.

But Phil Graham, a Labour councillor in Bunhill, said: “It’s not up to Keir Starmer who stands, it’s up to the members of Islington North to choose their candidate. For him to continue to say that Jeremy hasn’t got the support, well, he’s going to get a cold hard shock. If Jeremy stands as an independent, he’ll win.”

He added: “If they parachute someone in it’ll be a hard seat to win. I think they’d have to bring in support from around the country to canvass because the people in Islington North won’t do it. In Islington North, even people who aren’t political will vote for Jeremy because he’s been a good MP for the local people. I certainly won’t be assisting anyone else to take Jeremy’s seat. If that means I get suspended or whatever, then that’s the way it has to be.”

Dr Gill Yudkin, a former party member from Tufnell Park and part of the Jewish Voice for Labour group, said: “It shows Starmer’s unwillingness to allow any dissent in the party at all. He stood for the leadership saying that he was going to unite the party, and he claims that he has united the party.

“But he’s done so at the expense of purging the left, including a lot of elderly Jewish leftists. I know several people who were expelled from the party on accusations of anti-Semitism, and many of them were in their 80s. They were lifelong anti-racists.”

Mr Corbyn joining Islington Labour at last year’s manifesto launch

Ken Muller, a retired teacher who taught at Islington Green School for 20 years, said: “In my experience, Jeremy has been an outstanding local MP. He’s stood alongside working people in Islington, including teachers, when we’ve had to take action and campaign. He’s spoken at meetings, he’s attended picket lines. He is enormously well-respected in Islington.”

Mr Muller, who is a press secretary of the local branch of the National Education Union but was speaking personally, added: “Both of my sons joined the Labour Party when Jeremy became the leader. Both of them have now left, and one told me that he’ll never vote Labour again because of what Keir has done. The Labour Party is alienating people like my two boys.”

After the EHRC’s findings, Mr Corbyn said “one anti-Semite is one too many” 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.”

Mr Starmer said repeatedly that he would not restore the whip without an apology. Mr Corbyn has faced claims that anti-Semitism was rife in the party during his leadership and that he was slow to respond or understand how Jewish members felt.

Mr Starmer later commissioned KC Martin Forde to oversee an independent inquiry into racism, sexism and bullying in the party. His report said that anti-Semitism had become a “factional weapon” by both wings of the party.

Mr Corbyn said of Mr Starmer’s announcement: “I’m proud to serve alongside so many hard-working Labour councillors who support vulnerable people in our borough, champion environmental sustainability, and fight to bring services back in-house.

“It frustrates me that the leadership of the Labour Party is trying to divide a united borough by interfering in a democratic process, which ultimately distracts us all from the goal that brings us together: defeating the Conservative government at the next election.”

Islington South MP Emily Thornberry could not be reached this week for comment but tweeted that the ECHR’s investigation had been “humbling and painful”, adding: “As we are lifted out of special measures, we must reflect, repeat our apology and keep working.”

Cally councillor Paul Convery posted: “The verdict of the EHRC in Oct 2020 was a devastating indictment of the futile politics of the ultra leftist factional politics which entered our party.”