In Keir Starmer’s world view there is no benefit to Labour in having Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.
There is no hope of Corbyn’s CLP deselecting Corbyn. The best Starmer can do is to expel or suspend Jeremy Corbyn just as a General Election is called. The reasons can be spurious because the purpose is only to prevent Corbyn standing as a Labour MP.
There will not be time for Islington North CLP to choose another Leftist. The NEC will impose a candidate, who will not be a Leftist.
Corbyn’s Option “A” is to accept the situation gracefully. No-one believes that Jeremy Corbyn would just accept the situation.
Option B is to stand as Red Labour or similar in Islington North.
The 2019 General Election results were Corbyn 34,603, LD 8,415, Con 5,483, Green 4,326, Others 978.
There is no danger of the seat being lost to the LDs. If the vote splits exactly evenly, both candidates have 17,301 votes – more than LD and Conservatives put together. Jeremy Corbyn would be reluctant to expose all his friends to the certainty of expulsion from the Labour Party.
Option “C” is to stand in Holborn & St Pancras constituency against Keir Starmer. The results were Starmer 36,641, Con 8,878, LD 7,314, Green 2,746, Brexit 1,032 Others 175. Again, one of the Labour candidates will win. Should Corbyn win, it will demonstrate that Labour’s core vote prefers Corbyn to Starmer.
There are over 10,000 Corbyn supporters in London who have already left the Labour Party. If only 1,000 work for Red Labour in Holborn & St Pancras, that will be more than enough to get Corbyn’s message to everyone.
There are 66 constituencies where Labour won more than 60% of the vote in 2019. Some are held by Left MPs but many are not. If Red Labour stood against Right wing Labour in these constituencies, Red Labour might do better than the Scottish Nationalists (currently 47 seats), creating a very interesting House of Commons after the next General Election.
If Labour generally does poorly, then there will be a Red Labour opposition to fight the Tories. If Labour generally does well, then the Labour Party will only be able to form a Government with support from Red Labour.
Is Starmer stupid enough to create this situation? It is a logical consequence of the path that Starmer is on.
16 December 2020
Since this was written I have developed this idea in Our “Left Labour” Future .
You may enjoy Socialism 101, WHAT’S LEFT FOR LABOUR, and Democracy, Labour, and Me .