Mick Murray

(1) “Helloooo, is Praful there ?”

That was a headline in the Islington Tribune greeting the news that Praful Nargund had been named in the shortlist of two to be the official Labour Party candidate in the Islington North constituency held, since 1983, by Jeremy Corbyn. 

“It’s total silence from the Labour hopeful eyeing up the seat,” the local paper reported. “ Mr Nargund remained unwilling to talk to the Tribune and tell residents about what he could offer the area as an MP.

Over several weeks, he has repeatedly ignored phone calls and polite text messages from the newspaper about his ambition to sit in the House of Commons representing Islington North.” Islington Tribune, 30th May, 2024. 

In the end the “shortlist” was whittled down to one: Praful Nargund.  This “whittling down” was done by the party’s national executive with the express exclusion of the constituency’s elected CLP. That was against historic custom and practice, explicit party rules—even Starmer’s personal electioneering promise made during his campaign for party leadership to fully involve members in the Labour Party’s MP selection process. 

For the “National Executive Committee,” read: one man rule by Keith Starmer —long recognised by active members of the Labour Party and now seeping into the voting public’s consciousness, to Starmer’s consternation and detriment. 

(For a “catch-up” account of Starmer’s underhand factional war with the Left which led to Corbyn’s unlawful expulsion from the Parliamentary Labour Party see LINK: “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie,”  Platform Films;  LINK Aljezeera :The Labour Files, Part 2: “The disturbing truth behind the Labour Party’s “anti-semitism crisis” that helps destroy the party leader and silence debate on Israel and Palestine.” ) 

(2) “Oooooh Jeremy Corbyn!”

Compare and contrast Jeremy Corbyn’s ceaseless efforts to communicate his message to the constituents by all possible means – not least the impressive feat of leafletting every household in the constituency within the days following Sunak’s calling the 2024 General Election. It’s not only an indication of his willingness to inform his constituents but the depth of organisational commitment he is capable of inspiring. 

There follows a verbatim account of the best of the many interviews he’s already given. It was conducted by Novara Media. 

In the final section we’ll discuss briefly where Jeremy goes from here, in the aftermath of an apparently unequal electoral contest with …. Praful who? 

(3) Novara Media interview

Novara Media (henceforth NM): Why did you decide to run as an Independent?

Jeremy Corbyn  (henceforth JC): “Because the Labour Party in Islington North was denied a choice. I was denied the right to even submit my name. The National Executive passed a motion on Keir Starmer’s recommendation saying I was not fit to be a public representative of the Labour Party, which, for somebody who’s been 58 years in the Labour party I find a little odd. 

“So, I’m running as an independent. I’m running to represent the people around here on very clear issues about social justice in our society. Ending the two child policy, public ownership of mail, rail, water and energy.  And of course environmental sustainability.” 

NM: Why did you decide to run as an independent and not, say, for the Greens ?

JC: “I felt that it’s better if I ran as an Independent.  I obviously work with colleagues and friends in the Green Party as I do with other parties.  And, I felt that I should in all honesty say I’m an Independent. And this is my record, this is my view and this is my pledge to the people of Islington North.  That I will carry on doing my best to represent people. But above all, speaking out on the issues of the day: the housing crisis and in particular the complete unaffordability of the private rented sector.”

NM: Have you heard from any former Labour colleagues since the news was announced? Have you heard from Keir Starmer?  

JC: “I haven’t heard anything from him. A number of parliamentary colleagues have privately said they fully support me and said ‘good luck, you’re doing the right thing.’ “

NM: This obviously means that you’ve been expelled from the party that you’ve been a lifelong member of. How are you feeling about that ?  

JC: “Well, I feel very sad. I joined the Labour Party when I was 17 years old. I’ve held every position there is to hold within the party, from being a street collector in the days when people paid their subscriptions by cash to being Branch Secretary, Branch Chair, Constituency Agent, Regional Executive, MP and Leader of the Party. 

“And this morning a few minutes after I made the announcement, I got a short formal letter saying “You’re no longer a member of the Labour Party.”

NM: Are you excited at the prospect of a Labour majority though? 

JC: “I want to see the end of the Tory government and I want to see a different Parliament and I want to see a Parliament that’s determined to deal with economic and social injustice and where whatever the government is if it’s a Labour government or some other form of government does the right thing by, for example, taking our railways and mail service back into public ownership. I’d support it. But if they fall short and fail to end the two child policy on benefits for example, then I will be critical of them. I will stick by what I’ve said I will do.” 

NM: Obviously we’ve heard some of Labour’s pledges to renationalise the railways. Do you think these go far enough?  

JC: “No, they don’t. Because they are dependent on the end of the current contracts, they don’t appear to include Open Access services and they don’t, so far as I’m aware, unless they’re going to be finessed, include freight services either. It is not full public ownership.

As I raised in Parliament yesterday, the same thing applies to the National Health Service. 16% of Hospital expenditure all over the country goes on the private Finance initiative payments. 11 billion pounds has been paid out to the private sector in the last two years or last year from NHS budgets. We’ve got to end the culture of internal markets and privatisation and spend the money instead on Direct employment and patient care.” 

NM: We’re seeing a rise of Independents running in this election. Historically, Independents have often tended to represent more right-wing views but this appears to be shifting. Do you think there’s an opportunity here to break the two party monopoly? 

JC: “I think it’s already happening. Independents have been elected to a number of councils around the country. And you’re quite right that traditionally Independents were often seen as a fairly right-wing thing. But not anymore. Now, it’s Independents standing up for their communities. Standing up on the issues of housing, on open spaces and often challenging the way in which local government is increasingly used as a tool of central government. 

“There is a growing sense in the country of a threat to our civil liberties:  the right to march, the right to meet,  the right to demonstrate,  as has been shown with the way in which the Gaza campaign has been treated. And I think there’s that sort of sense of social injustice that is also there. When all the parties reject the idea of real control of the private rented sector where do young people go for their political support ? “

NM: You mentioned Gaza there. Do you think Starmer cares about Palestinians and what’s happening, cares about what’s happening in Gaza ? 

JC: “I think he made a huge mistake in his initial reaction. Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza. Israel has been found wanting by the International Court of Justice and its leaders by the International Criminal Court, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly and the Geneva Convention. Is that not enough ? You don’t have to be a lawyer to recognise Israel is in breach of international law. What happened on October the 7th was awful. The taking of hostages is awful. The killing of civilians is awful. And the killing of 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza is beyond abominable. There’s got to be a Ceasefire. That means we’ve got to end the arms supply to Israel and work with people in the United States who are demanding the same of their government.”

NM: There’s been a lot of talk that the sort of watered down policies put forward by Labour at the moment are merely an attempt to look electable – that loaded word. Do you think when Labour get into government we might see some more radicalism, or do you think this is a clear setting out of what the Labour Party in government is going to look like? 

JC: “Now it would be a very interesting twist of history if a government elected on a very weak Manifesto then suddenly turned to being the most radical government in history. History is against that.  I think when you’re running for election you should say what you intend to do. Are we happy with the inequality of our society? No. Are we going to do anything about it personally? Yes. That does mean challenging the unaccountable and obscene levels of wealth of the very wealthiest and the biggest corporations. It’s tough. These people don’t like being challenged, that’s why you have to do it.”  

NM: Does Keir Starmer and the people around him care about working people ? 

JC: “I think the political parties including Labour in Parliament become almost obsessed with the day-to-day manoeuverings within their own teams and they absolutely lose the plot about what the majority of the population think.  People are idiosyncratic. They have lots of different views on different things. If you go to people in this community around here they say well actually what I want is a right to decent housing, an end to student debt, hope for our children being brought up in in a community that unites people. 

“You don’t have to do it just through politics. You do it through poetry, you do it through art. You do it through music. You do it through science. You do it through lots of things. Give people a sense of hope, not the pessimism and the arid defeatism of our society.” 

NM: Finally, we’ve talked a bit about what you think is needed to tackle the crisis of the country. But you’re running in Islington North. What is your main pitch to voters here ?  

JC: “I will represent Islington North as hard as I always have and will continue to do so demanding decent and good quality housing for all, demanding resources go to the local Council so it can build more homes. But above all control of the private rented sector and recognize so many people in our area are living in deep stress.  The Mental Health crisis is not just a medical crisis, it’s a social crisis brought about by levels of stress and inequality and poverty. “

NM: Jeremy Corbin, thank you so much.

For Official opening of Jeremy Corbyn’s Election Campaign. Of all the coverage of the event, the ITV report has been selected for best capturing a throwback to the heady days of the enthusiastic support for Corbyn and his politics:  LINK: Live: Jeremy Corbyn launches Labour election campaign | ITV News

(4) Will he, won’t he?

All the informal “polling”  and innumerable  “Vox pops” favourJeremy Corbyn remaining MP for Islington North.The bookies have him odds-on also; odds that will surely shorten as the unforgivably duplicitousness and vindictiveness of the Starmerite Labour leadership in the selection of candidates for ‘safe’ seats gathers traction with thevoting public. 

The continued official Labour support for Israel’s genocidal war ought to be in his favour. How big an issue that will be, come polling day, is difficult to assess. It hasn’t featured as strongly in the pre-election statements of the main political parties in the early stages of the election, as might have been expected. Only the Workers Party has kept the Palestinian flag flying as, perhaps, the core issue of its campaigning. And, in what passes for political debates in mainstream TV and radio, it’s as if an unspoken truce has been agreed upon between Tories and Labour “not to talk about the war.” 

 Finally, up to now, the question has been: will Jeremy stand as an Independent ? 

Now that he has make that decision, and acted on it, the question is: will Jeremy be satisfied at merely winning back his seat in the House of Commons, or, responding to the widespread support generated by his decision to challenge Starmer’s Labour, is he willing to follow the logic of his success thus far and initiate a move towards the founding of an independent Socialist Parliamentary Party? It’s generally accepted across social media that were he to take that step he could garner tens, if not hundreds, of supporters of such an idea overnight. 

Note the the phrase “initiate a move, above,” not lead.  

But let’s not go there: what Jeremy does from here, in the short term, is going to be decided by the result in his own seat in Islington North and, by the overall 2024 electoral progress, or otherwise, of the burgeoning movement of Left independents – and the Workers’ Party of Britain. 

Whether Labour achieves the widely forecast three figure majority and how, if that materialises, it will be  perceived to be using it in government to introduce its much trumpeted, though lacking in detail “Change” agenda, is another, longer term, one 

The recent EU election results provide a cautionary tale for Britain and is a reminder that time is of the essence.  

“The EU goose-steps to the Right as Far-Right parties surge in EU elections,” as the Labour Heartlands, 10, June, 2024 reported. 

Its explanation of the European sea-change: “For years, critics cautioned that Brussels’ dogmatic pursuit of austerity, open borders, and deindustrialization would ultimately sow the seeds of its own undoing. That and putting the narrow interests of big business over those of its very citizenry courted a furious backlash as the dispossessed inevitably revolted against their disenfranchisement.”

“However, perhaps most chillingly, as Labour Heartland points out,  “the far-right’s ascendance appears driven substantially by younger generations disenchanted with the bureaucratic, undemocratic face of the increasingly distant Brussels establishment. 

“Alternative for Germany (AfD) party surged to 16.5% support, making it the second biggest party as its gains came predominantly from youth voters.”

The coming election, and the response to the Autumn budget closely following on from it, 

will provide more questions than answers. But a reset is long overdue. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. 

And our polity, since succumbing to Thatcherite-Blairism’ decades ago, has been nothing if not vacuous.