Jeremy Corbyn ‘close to being deselected’ as Labour MP

Leading party officials believed to have held talks on how best to remove former party leader from his Islington North seat

Source - Daily Telegraph - 13/02/21

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Jeremy Corbyn is on the brink of being deselected by Labour as MP for Islington North as it prepares to replace him with a new candidate.

Top party officials have held discussions on how best to remove the former Labour leader from the seat.

The Telegraph understands that Mr Corbyn wants the Labour whip restored and to continue as the MP for the seat.

He has been an independent MP since Oct 2020 after he said that the scale of complaints of anti-Semitism during his time as leader were “dramatically overstated”.

Mr Corbyn has been the constituency’s MP since 1983, and has seen much of the Constituency Labour Party (CLP) remain on the Left of the party since his election as leader over six years ago.

Alison McGarry, the chairman of the Islington North CLP, is a member of the Momentum group as well as trade unionist with Unite.

His deselection would currently come from his local party voting for a new contest to choose a candidate, which he would have to lose – something that would be unlikely to happen given his popularity in the area.

Despite this, a senior party insider told The Sunday Times that they are “determined to bring this to a head. The current position is not sustainable”, while a source close to Sir Keir Starmer said that Mr Corbyn’s time in the party was effectively over.

The Telegraph reported last month that Mr Corbyn was considering establishing his own political party after privately accepting that he would not have the whip reinstated.

Party insiders were understood earlier this year to be supportive of Mary Creagh, a former Labour MP for Wakefield who lost her seat in 2019, to stand against Mr Corbyn who presided over the election that cost her place in Parliament.

It comes as Labour continues to be involved in a public spat with the Unite union, one of its closest allies and biggest donors during Mr Corbyn’s tenure as leader.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said this week that it would be reviewing £1 million of its remaining funding, which could leave the party bankrupt.

A Labour spokesman said: “We have publicly set out the process required for Jeremy Corbyn to come back into the Parliamentary Labour Party. The ball is in his court.”