Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will not be allowed to stand as the party’s candidate in the next general election, leader Keir Starmer announced on Wednesday.
Corbyn currently sits an an independent member of parliament after being suspended by Labour over criticism of a report into the party’s move to tackle internal antisemitism.
He had been hopeful that the party would let him back in so he could be a Labour candidate in the next election, BBC News reported. However, he hasn’t publicly commented on whether he would consider running in his longtime Islington North constituency as an independent against a Labour candidate.
Starmer ruled out letting Corbyn return, describing how Labour has rehabilitated itself under his tenure and “we are not going back.”
"Let me be very clear about that: Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for Labour at the next general election, as a Labour party candidate,” he told reporters at an event in East London.
"What I said about the party changing, I meant, and we are not going back, and that is why Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour candidate at the next general election."
Corbyn was suspended as a Labour MP after attacking a 2020 Equality and Human Rights Commission report into multiple allegations of antisemitism within the party, claiming that internal antisemitism had been "dramatically overstated" in a campaign to discredit his leadership.
He was only readmitted to Labour after admitting that the party’s antisemitism problem was neither "exaggerated nor overstated.” But he was still not allowed to represent the party in parliament.
Starmer added that “antisemitism is an evil and any political party that cultivates it does not deserve power."
Labour was "unrecognizable from 2019 and it will never go back,” he said, referring to the Corbyn era. “If you don't like that, if you don't like the changes we have made, I say the door is open and you can leave.”