Jeremy Corbyn to run as an independent in UK general election

The 74-year-old ex-party leader will stand in his constituency of Islington North after being dropped from Labour candidate shortlist.

Former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn poses as people protest during a march in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in London, Britain, April 27, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Corbyn with protesters in London during a march in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza [File: Hollie Adams/Reuters]

Published On 24 May 2024

24 May 2024

Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent candidate in the United Kingdom’s general election on July 4, a move that could lead to a potential upset for Labour in his north London seat.

Corbyn, who has represented the London constituency of Islington North for more than 40 years, announced on Friday that he would contest the seat to be “an independent voice for equality, democracy and peace”.

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Labour officials have not included the 74-year-old in a shortlist of candidates for the seat, prompting his decision to go it alone.

“I want our political parties to be democratic, but members of Islington North Labour have been denied the right to choose a candidate,” Corbyn said in a video announcing his plan.

“So we have to stand up. We have to stand up and say, we’re not taking this anymore. We will assert our rights. That’s why I’m standing to be an independent candidate for the people of Islington North.”

Labour suspended Corbyn in 2020 following a report into how anti-Semitism complaints were handled under his leadership. Corbyn was Labour leader at the last election in 2019 and has held the Islington North seat since 1983.

Corbyn, who has been a longtime, staunch critic of Israel’s policies on Palestine, had acknowledged some of the findings during his leadership, adding that Jewish members of the Labour Party and the wider community “were right to expect us to deal with it”. But he added that he did not accept “all the findings”.

An Al Jazeera investigation into the crisis found that senior Labour officials had at the time attempted to undermine support for Corbyn and, on some occasions, silence debate about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

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Critic of Israel’s war on Gaza

After the October 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel and the start of Israel’s relentless war on Gaza that killed over 35,000 Palestinians, Corbyn emerged anew as a critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the overall policy of the Israeli government.

In November, he was one of the earliest politicians to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what he described as a “genocide” in Gaza.

“People in Gaza have been living under a blockade for the past 16 years and the Israeli occupation controls most of what goes in and out of Gaza,” he said, while also accusing politicians around the world of giving Israel a “green light to starve and slaughter the Palestinian people in the name of self-defence”.

He said the Hamas-led attack cannot justify “the indiscriminate bombing and starvation of the Palestinian people, who are being punished for a heinous crime they did not commit”.

Since October, Corbyn has also joined several protests in the UK denouncing Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

On Thursday, UK political leaders kicked off six weeks of campaigning before the country votes for a new government on July 4.

A snap Survation poll of voting intentions after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement put centre-left Labour on 48 points – its highest since November 2022 and 21 points ahead of the governing Conservatives, at 27.

Survation said the results were consistent with Labour’s polling throughout 2023 and this year. Other surveys have suggested similar results.