Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will reportedly never again be allowed to stand as a parliamentary candidate for the party, according to senior party sources.
The Guardian reported on Monday that senior party figures have said that Mr Corbyn is permanently barred from selection as a Labour candidate ahead of any future election.
Last year, the ex-Labour leader was asked to issue an apology for his 2020 claims that claims of antisemitism under his leadership had been “dramatically overstated”.
Following Mr Corbyn’s failure to do so, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer removed the whip from his predecessor.
Top Labour sources say he would now be blocked from any selections, even if he were to apologise “unequivocally, unambiguously and without reservation”.
One told the newspaper 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.”
Mr Corbyn will therefore have to stand as an independent, or for another party if he plans to run for his current Islington North constituency at the next general election.
One supporter of the erstwhile Labour leader suggested he had not “fully realised” he would not regain the whip.
Other Corbyn allies told the paper he planned to run for the seat, whether or not he is the Labour candidate, suggesting that many locals supported him due to his work in the constituency.
Mr Corbyn, who first entered the House of Commons in 1983 was re-elected to his Islington North seat in 2019 with 63.4 per cent of the vote.
Top Labour officials have also said Momentum would be condemned by the party if it were to campaign for the former Leader of the Opposition.
The left-wing grassroots organisation was formed in 2015 following Mr Corbyn's elevation to the Labour leadership. In 2017 it mandated that all members must also be Labour party members.
In 2021, Labour’s National Executive Council proscribed Labour membership of pro-Corbyn groups Labour Against the Witch Hunt, Labour in Exile Network, Resist, and Socialist Appeal on the grounds that the organisations were deemed "not compatible with Labour's rules, aims or values."
Director of the progressive campaign think tank Compass, Neal Lawson, has criticised Labour’s “heavy-handed approach” to selections in a letter to its general secretary, David Evans, suggesting that the list of eligible candidates has been “dramatically” narrowed on “increasingly spurious grounds”.
Earlier this year Labour dissolved Kensington’s selection committee as a result of alleged leaks and a “serious investigation” into antisemitism claims, with former MP Emma Dent Coad being blocked from the seat’s long list.
