Jeremy Corbyn re-elected in Islington North after expulsion from Labour
Jeremy Corbyn has won Islington North, the constituency he has represented since 1983 – but for the first time elected as an independent MP.
The former leader of the opposition beat Praful Nargund, a local Labour councillor selected by the party’s executive committee as their candidate in May. Corbyn won 24,120 votes, with Nargund winning 16,873 votes. Turnout for the election was 67.5%, down from 2019’s 71.6%.
Corbyn, 75, was blocked from standing as a Labour candidate in March 2023 by Keir Starmer, but announced soon after the election was called that he would be standing as an independent, leading to his expulsion from Labour.
In October 2020, Corbyn was suspended from the party and lost the parliamentary whip after describing antisemitism in Labour as “dramatically overstated for political reasons” in response to a critical report from the equality watchdog.
After 19 days, he was readmitted to the party, but Starmer’s refusal to reinstate the whip meant he continued to sit as an independent MP until the general election was called.
Corbyn’s campaign faced the difficulty of overcoming the long association between him and the Labour party, with many voters in his north London constituency seemingly unaware he was not the party’s candidate in the election. Despite an uphill battle without Labour’s canvassing data or infrastructure, Corbyn’s campaign relied on volunteers from across the UK coming to support door-knocking efforts.
Last week, 72 members of the constituency Labour party signed an open letter backing Corbyn, risking expulsion from the party to express their view that local members had been “denied the right to choose our own candidate”.
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Corbyn’s victory ends a tradition of Islington North voting for Labour since a 1937 byelection.