Jeremy Corbyn

No run for mayor

Contrary to media speculation, Jeremy Corbyn is not going to run for London Mayor. The poll is on 2 May; Sadiq Khan is the Labour candidate. The possibility, however, remains open of the local Labour Party defying the Labour leadership and selecting Corbyn (who is still a Labour member, though denied the Labour whip in Parliament) as its candidate in Islington North in the coming parliamentary election. Solidarity has supported the wide protest against Islington North being denied a democratic choice, but has argued against courting exclusion by a “local independent” contest. The result would...

Corbyn for mayor?

According to two polls published in the Evening Standard on 16 November, Jeremy Corbyn will do poorly if he stands in the London mayor election on 2 May 2024.

Peace, justice, and... Stalinism

Jeremy Corbyn announced his Peace and Justice Project (PJP) in December 2020, with a mission statement that included: “To bring people together for social and economic justice, peace, and human rights, in Britain and across the world… [It] will work with labour and social movements and provide platforms to those campaigning for change for the many, not the few.” Corbyn’s more cultish supporters expressed disappointment that (in the words of the Canary website) he “hasn’t launched a new political party in the face of the continuing demise of the Labour Party. But what this new project will...

After Rutherglen by-election: organise the left!

In percentage terms, Scottish Labour romped home to victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election on 5 October 2023. Labour won the seat with nearly 60% of the vote (compared with 34% of the vote in the 2019 general election). The SNP’s share of the vote slumped from 44% in 2019 to 28%. The overall swing from SNP to Labour was just over 20%. If the result were repeated across Scotland in a general election – although it certainly will not be – Labour would win 42 seats and the SNP would hold on to just six seats. Even so, the result strengthens the more realistic prospect of Labour...

Conspiracy theory and invented “bans”

You can’t win against conspiracy theorists: evidence that refutes their arguments just proves how deep the conspiracy goes; any attempt to stop them spreading their nonsense must be the work of the conspirators themselves. So it is with the film Oh, Jeremy Corbyn: the Big Lie . The makers and promoters of the film claim that it was “banned” from the Glastonbury Festival. The Morning Star cites the Glastonbury “ban” as an example of “increased political censorship”. The film’s producer, Norman Thomas says: “Journalists … have to stand up and call this out for what it is: rank censorship. The...

Old friends and conspiracy theories

Loyalty to old friends is an admirable thing, but it can be taken too far — especially in politics. The Morning Star is nothing if not loyal towards Jeremy Corbyn, who wrote a weekly column for the paper between 2005 and 2015. In its 10-11 June edition, the paper devoted eight pages to a “celebration” of Corbyn’s 40 years as an MP. There’s a chummy interview with editor Ben Chacko, Lindsey German praises Corbyn for “calling for peace in Ukraine” (i.e. for Ukraine to capitulate), Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn hail him as “a man of the people” and one Chelley Ryan describes how she and her...

Against ban on Corbyn, against "independent" contest

Since the 28 March decision by Labour’s National Executive (NEC) to formalise Keir Starmer’s ban on Jeremy Corbyn standing as Labour candidate in Islington North at the next election, Islington North Labour Party has protested and “Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn” has started a petition to back Corbyn. More important than a petition is what can be done in the unions. At the NEC GMB, Usdaw and MU voted for the ban, and Unison abstained; Unite, CWU, Aslef, TSSA, and FBU voted against (with the disability rep and five CLP reps). The ban motion recognised Corbyn as a Labour member in good...

Oborne, Corbyn and antisemitism

In Solidarity 661 I described the journalist Peter Oborne’s largely uncritical attitude to Islamic regimes and Islamist movements; in issue 663 I showed that his claim that the Birmingham Trojan Horse affair was a “hoax” is incorrect. I will now go on to examine his attitude towards claims of antisemitism within Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and, in particular, his role in making and promoting the Al Jazeera series The Labour Files . It is important to note that Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari state and in 2019 produced a video claiming that the holocaust had been “exaggerated” by the “Zionist...

Labour: Let Corbyn stand! Labour left: Stay in there!

Keir Starmer used a speech welcoming the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) end to its monitoring of the Labour Party for antisemitism to rule out Jeremy Corbyn standing as a Labour candidate in the next election. In Labour’s rules, Starmer has no power to making that ruling. But selections in the last 18 months have shown the right-controlled National Executive (NEC) doing effectively whatever it likes. Previous guarantees that candidates with enough branch or union backing would automatically make longlists or shortlists have vanished. Former MPs have been prevented from standing...

The left and lessons from Corbynism

Michael Chessum met Martin Thomas from Solidarity on 15 October to talk about his new book on Corbynism, This Is Only The Beginning . Near the end of the book (p.210) it says: “Socialist was the movement’s prevailing adjective, but its immediate policy programme was… social democracy, and there was little or no collective discussion inside Corbynism about what a truly socialist or anti-capitalist programme might look like in the future”. Wasn’t that fundamental? And wasn’t the same lack also true of the “movements” of 2010-15 which the book describes as feeding into Corbynism? Corbynism was an...

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