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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Rachael Burford

Labour vote to block Jeremy Corbyn from standing for party at next election

Labour’s National Executive Committee has voted to block Jeremy Corbyn from running to be an MP for the party at the next election.

Sir Keir Starmer put forward the motion stating the party will not endorse the Islington North MP as a candidate.

Mr Corbyn, who has represented the north London constituency since 1983, accused Sir Keir of undermining the party’s internal democracy ahead of the vote.

But Ed Miliband, a former Labour leader himself, insisted that the background to the row was well known and that there was “no mystery” to why the proposal had been made.

Sir Keir’s motion said Mr Corbyn “will not be endorsed by the NEC as a candidate on behalf of the Labour Party at the next general election”.

It cited the dismal defeat Labour experienced at the 2019 election under Mr Corbyn in arguing his candidacy should be blocked.

Labour’s chances of winning the next election and securing a majority in the Commons would be “significantly diminished” if he was endorsed, it argued.

The move was not welcomed in all wings of the parliamentary Labour Party, where Mr Corbyn retains the support of those aligned with the Socialist Campaign Group.

MP Nadia Whittome described the motion as “divisive, an attack on party democracy and a distraction”.

Mr Corbyn remains a member of the Labour Party but has lost the whip, meaning he is sitting in the Commons as an independent.

He was suspended over his response to the damning Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report in 2020, which found that Labour had broken equalities law.

Sir Keir ruled out Mr Corbyn standing again for Labour last month, as he insisted the party had undergone a transformation since he took over.

He confirmed the move after the EHRC lifted Labour out of two years of special measures over its failings on antisemitism under his predecessor.

Left-winger Mr Corbyn is considering whether to run as an independent, setting up a potentially distracting challenge for the new leadership at the next election.

Activist Jon Lansman, the co-founder of the Corbyn-backing Momentum group, accused Sir Keir of behaving like “some kind of Putin of the Labour Party”.

“That is not the way we do politics,” he told Times Radio.

However, Mr Lansman said it would be a “big mistake” for Mr Corbyn to run as an independent, saying he wants to see Sir Keir form a Labour government.

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