Keir Starmer says Jeremy Corbyn will NOT be a Labor candidate in the next election

According to a close ally, Jeremy Corbyn “does not intend” to stand for independence in the next election, despite being rejected as an official Labor candidate.

Diane Abbott, who was shadow home secretary during Corbyn’s tenure as Labor leader, challenged current party boss Sir Keir Starmer.

She stressed that it should be up to local Labor members in the Left Party’s Islington North constituency whether they want him as a parliamentary candidate.

It came after Sir Keir used a speech on anti-Semitism this morning to announce that Corbyn will not be allowed to stand for Labor.

“Jeremy is a member of the Labor Party and so it should be up to local party members to decide whether to have him as a candidate or not,” Ms Abbott told the News Agents podcast.

The Labor MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington also revealed that Mr Corbyn was a Brexiteer ‘at heart’ as she suggested this was the only point of contention between him and Sir Keir as they worked together while he was leader.

Sir Keir served as Labor shadow secretary for three and a half years before Brexit under Corbyn and campaigned for him to become Prime Minister in the 2017 and 2019 general elections.

But after replacing Corbyn as Labor leader, Sir Keir stripped his predecessor of the Labor whip in 2020.

It followed Mr Corbyn’s response to a highly critical report on how Labor handled allegations of anti-Semitism during his leadership.

“As far as I know they had a perfectly good relationship, a perfectly amicable relationship,” Ms Abbott said of Corbyn and Sir Keir’s relationship before that.

“The only thing they disagreed on was that Jeremy, at heart, is a Brexiter and Keir Starmer was passionately pro-European at the time.”

But Ms Abbott added that Mr Corbyn – with whom she was once romantically linked – “would have voted for Remain” in the 2016 EU referendum “because that was the party’s policy”.

Asked if Mr Corbyn would run as an independent in his Islington North seat after being blocked by Sir Keir from running as a Labor candidate, she added: ‘No, no.

“Jeremy has been a member of the Labor Party before either of you lived… He has no intention of running as an independent.”

Earlier today, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it was ending its investigation into Labor following improvements in the party’s handling of anti-Semitism claims.

But Sir Keir, speaking in East London, said there was no room left for Mr Corbyn on the party’s Commons benches.

Asked by reporters if he could say categorically whether Mr Corbyn will stand for the party, Sir Keir said: ‘Let me be very clear on that: Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for Labor in the next General Election, as a candidate for the Labor Party.

“What I said about the party change, I meant. And we’re not going back, which is why Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labor candidate in the next general election.’

It means Labor will run a candidate against 73-year-old Corbyn when he takes his seat in Islington North, where he currently has a majority of 26,188.

Sir Keir had previously challenged his predecessor’s supporters to support his power plans or leave the party.

The EHRC – which has been keeping a close eye on Labor since it ruled it responsible for unlawful harassment and discrimination more than two years ago – today announced its Action Plan for Labor to address breaches of the Equality Act, which was finalized at the end of January and said it was satisfied with the reforms.

Sir Keir said the party’s reform work was not over as he proposed that any members who had doubts about the need for change should leave Labour.

He wrote in the Times: “The changes we have made are not just fiddling or workarounds. They are permanent, fundamental, irrevocable.

“The Labor Party I lead today is beyond recognition from 2019. There are people who don’t like that change, who still refuse to see the reality of what happened under the previous leadership.

‘To them I say in all candor: we are never going back. If you don’t like it, no one is forcing you to stay.’

Mr Corbyn will probably be 75 by the time the next election takes place in 2024 or 2025, and if he wins he could serve until he is 80.

According to the i-newspaper, he recently told locals in his constituency that he has no intention of retiring.

If he were to run again as an independent, it could give Labor a headache, but some senior party members believe a Labor candidate could win against him.

Although Corbyn remains a member of the Labor Party, he sits as an independent MP. He had the whip removed and was suspended in the wake of the highly critical EHRC report in 2020.

He had his party membership restored within weeks, but Sir Keir refused to re-admit him to the group of Labor MPs.

In his initial response to the EHRC report, Mr Corbyn claimed that the extent of anti-Semitism in the party had been “dramatically exaggerated for political reasons” by opponents both inside and outside Labour, along with the media.

But he later tried to clarify his comments in a statement, saying that concerns about anti-Semitism are “neither” exaggerated nor “exaggerated.”

In early February, he begged Labor to end his “absurd and disgraceful” suspension so he could represent it in the next election.

In a podcast interview, he lashed out at the decision to kick him out and begged to be allowed back in. But he also used the interview to defend a Labor backbencher, Kim Johnson, who was criticized for labeling the Israeli government as “fascist.”

He told Global Radio’s The News Agents podcast, “It’s disgraceful. It’s absurd and outrageous. I have been a Labor MP since 1983.

‘Since then I have been elected in every election, of course 10 times. And I’ve been a member of the PvdA since I was sixteen.

‘And I was elected as a Labor MP by my very loyal constituents in Islington North. And I think it’s all absurd.’

‘PvdA members should be able to decide on the future of their party. Members of the Labor Party should be able to decide who the Labor candidates are, because that’s what Keir Starmer has been elected leader.

‘I get on well with the PvdA members on the ground. I support them locally. I work with the municipality. I campaigned locally with the PvdA.

“And I’m working as best I can and as hard as I can to represent my constituency. And I love to do that. And I would like to keep doing that.’

Dame Margaret Hodge said Labor “has moved on from the very dark days of October 2020 when the EHRC ruled we were a party that discriminated against Jews.”

On the future of former Labor leader Mr Corbyn, she added: ‘I can’t think of any circumstances under which Jeremy could run for the Labor Party in the next general election.

“He has been master of his own destiny, he knew what he was doing in the past, he knew what he was doing when the EHRC came out and he has only himself to blame.

“I’ve moved away from Corbyn, the party has moved away from Corbyn for good, the country has moved away from Corbyn when you see what Labor is now winning in the polls and I think Corbyn is just part of the past, he’s a relic of yesterday .’