Former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been permanently banned from running as a candidate for the party, senior party sources told The Guardian.
According to the officials, Corbyn’s ban is permanent and he will not be allowed to run in future elections.
In February 2022, party insiders met to discuss ways to stop Corbyn from running for the party in the seat he has held since 1983 in Islington North.
Corbyn was removed as the party whip and has been sitting as an independent MP since October 2020 – when he alleged that Labour’s internal issue with antisemitism that led to a wide ranging investigation was “dramatically overstated” by his political opponents. But he has remained a member of the party.
In January 2020, Corbyn and his supporters within Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) attempted to have the parliamentary whip reinstated to the former party leader, but it was voted down.
Corbyn was suspended from Labour following the publication of a report compiled by the Equality and Human Rights Commission which found numerous cases where the party leadership under Corbyn underplayed, belittled or ignored complaints by Jewish members, and sometimes actively interfered to support political allies.
He was reinstated by Labour after appearing to apologize for disparaging the report, but his successor as Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said he would deny Corbyn the party whip even after he was reinstated as a party member.
Senior Labour officials said that Corbyn will now be blocked from being selected as a candidate regardless of whether he issues an apology “unequivocally, unambiguously and without reservation,” The Guardian reported.
One of the sources said that “Jeremy Corbyn is never getting back in. He would be toxic to our chances of winning back some of the seats we need to win back.”
The development mens that if he were to run again in his Islington North constituency, Corbyn would either have to join another party or run as an independent.
Corbyn was last re-elected to the seat in 2019 with strong support, winning 63.4 percent of the vote.