The political calculations in Islington North
What can each side of the Labour wars gain or lose from the different moves available when it comes to fighting this seat?
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Before I start, a few notes on what this post won’t be. I am not going to be writing about the successes and failures of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. This will not be about antisemitism or defence or economics or any of the things Labour members found painful on all sides. All of these discussions are valid, but there aren’t what I am looking at here. I’m also not going to speculate very much about the motivations of Corbyn as an individual. I don’t know him and I think there is far too much projection onto him from all sides already.
In this post, what I want to look at in detail is the thinking that will be happening at factional and individual levels about what Jeremy Corbyn - and those who support and oppose him - might choose to do in the run-up to the next election.
It is now very clear (and frankly has been for some time) that Corbyn will not stand for the Labour Party at the next general election. This means that he personally has a decision to make and that decision will have consequences for his local followers and party members.
The calculations for Corbyn
Corbyn could, of course, simply choose to retire. He is, after all, 73. He has always had a life outside of parliamentary politics from his joy of tending his allotment to his many roles in various campaign groups and causes dear to his heart. He would retain a great deal of cache as a speaker and campaigner for those causes even were he to lose his parliamentary role.
However, Corbyn has demonstrated throughout his career a fiercely independent streak and has already made it clear he is unhappy about this decision. This unhappiness is perfectly understandable. He’s been an MP for 40 years and this would be a somewhat inglorious end.
First of all, of course, he will try to fight this from within. He is a member of the Labour Party - despite not having the Parliamentary whip. So could be seen to be an eligible candidate for the seat. But he won’t be longlisted, never mind shortlisted. And any legal challenge to this would likely fail, not least because of the legal precedent set in court battles during his leadership. The NEC is not stacked in his favour and no one has a *right* to be the candidate - something the left was pretty vociferous about when seeking (less than successfully) to trigger and deselect centrist Labour MPs during Corbyn’s leadership.
So let us take as read for our purposes that all of this has been exhausted. What then does Corbyn do? And what choices does that force on his supporters? What will it mean for those remaining in Labour in Islington North?
It seems to me he has four options here if he does want to run again:
Run as an independent.
Join the Greens and seek to be adopted as their candidate.
Join TUSC, Left Unity or another smaller left wing party and seek to be adopted as their candidate.
Set up a new party and run as their candidate.
All of these have different pros and cons for Corbyn himself.
An established party - particularly the Greens - will have a decent campaigning infrastructure already established. They already have councillors in the constituency (though this is a double edged sword as some longer established Green members may want to be the candidate themselves).
But established parties will come with established politics of the small and large p variety. There’s a reason that Corbyn has remained in the Labour Party and not defected. Those reasons would have to be discussed with any new party. The smaller p politics will also have to be navigated. Someone coming in with an expectation of being selected candidate will have other’s potentially bruised egos to deal with. As mentioned above, The Greens have well established candidates. GLA Greens Leader Caroline Russell is a councillor in the constituency and has run in the seat against Corbyn in every election since 2015. Corbyn would have campaigners who spent the last few elections fighting against him to contend with as well as candidates who may be in no mood to give him a glide path to their nomination. None of which is insurmountable. But would need managing.
This may make him lean towards running as an independent candidate rather than running for an already established party. But this too comes with risks. There is no infrastructure. It is likely that a number of local Momentum members would follow him, which would help with this, but will be nothing against the might of any established machine. And if he loses as an independent, there would be little infrastructure left behind for a future tilt at another role - say, for example, as Mayor of London (an obvious option as this is a role that voters have acted relatively Quixotic about in the past).
Jeremy Corbyn is - by pretty much universal accounts - a very popular local MP. He has represented the area for a long time and is known to be an assiduous constituency representative, fighting hard on each piece of casework in a place that - despite the stereotypes - has a lot of poverty and problems.
An example: When I was volunteering one Christmas in a temporary homeless shelter being run in his constituency, I remember that he came in and spent a long time with the guests and the volunteers. Because of the delicacies behind this particular shelter (it was for high dependency guests) there was no chance of media coverage. We weren’t the place that got tonnes of celebrities dropping in. Corbyn was there because he cared and he stayed because he cared. For all my criticisms of his leadership and what happened to the party on his watch, I have never doubted that for a second. That afternoon is a microcosm of a long career spent building that credibility and it matters to people locally.
So I have no doubt that Corbyn will have a higher than usual personal vote. An MP is usually believed to have a personal vote of around 500 - 1500 depending on various factors such as visibility, longevity etc. I am pretty confident in saying that due to his high levels of personal popularity in the seat, Corbyn may well have a vote much higher than this.
But he won Islington for Labour with a majority of 26,188. How many of those voters would move with Corbyn at the moment that Labour looks like it might be poised for government? Would it be enough to make the difference? Enough to split the left vote and lead to a victory for the Lib Dems or Tories? These are the questions that Corbyn will have to be honest with himself about before making any decision.
The calculations for the left
It was my birthday this week. I mention this not (only) to get you to buy me a coffee but also to note that as I opted for a quiet affair, the people outside my family I spent it with were all local friends - a number of whom I met through the Labour Party.
Politics is about policy choices of course. But it’s also about people. Choosing not only to leave your political party but to work against it offers some agonising personal choices. Throughout my life I have watched friendships torn assuneder by political disagreements (for example,my parent’s were iced out of the Labour Party babysitting circle for supporting a local Traveller’s site - something that still makes me very proud of them). These were disagreements within the party. They are nothing to how much you might stand to lose in terms of friendships and activities that previously filled your time and efforts if you leave the party itself. I think I would still have this group of friends without the party - but what of the others I know less well? What if I hadn’t been in the party to meet them in the first place?
This might seem like a trivial part of a calculation but it truly isn’t. It’s human nature to want to be with and agree with our friends. To do something to so publicly sunder these friendships is hard.
People also like to be on the winning side. If Labour continue to look like they are going to win the next election [insert no complacency platitude here] then that makes leaving at this moment harder too. Where are you going to spend election night? Not at the victory - or commisseration party with all your friends. Because that victory will not be one you share and, worse, those commisserations may have - in part - have been caused by your actions.
On the last available figures I have been able to source, Islington North CLP has about 4000 members. These will not all be active. In fact I imagine considerably fewer than half will frequently or ever go canvassing and these will sit across a range of factions. What kind of numbers will be needed to back up an independent campaign? How many would defect to another party alongside you.
The questions members on the left will be asking themselves, alongside those about losing friendships, is what else do I have to lose?
Some people will want to be councillors. Of the 58 sitting councillors in Islington only 3 are not Labour (all Green). If you have ambition to be part of the leadership of your local borough, in Islington, for the foreseeable future, you have to be Labour. Even if - and it’s a big if - enough councillors defected to force some sort of power sharing, they will not have the personal vote of Corbyn and will have to know that such an arrangement would be short lived. A portfolio position in a prominent London council brings a financial stipend and the ability to make a real local difference. That’s a lot to give up or give up the opportunity of having one day.
The left - both in Islington North and more widely will have to make a strategic decision as to whether they think Corbyn can win - or make a big enough dent to have a springboard to the next platform.
If he runs and loses, that weakens them considerably. It weakens them either way in Islington North Labour because defecting or leaving the party will mean fewer votes for constituency positions and candidates for those who coose to stay. The party will shift righwards in one of its safest seats and one of its safest councils.
It also weakens the power of the Campaign Group in the PLP if Corbyn loses. No one else would claim to have the personal vote he does and would know that they could easily be deselected or expelled if they were to go against the party’s (somewhat Byzantine) rules.
But the prize if Corbyn wins could be huge. A Farage-style insurgence on the left might seem a considerably more of a threat - especially if Labour becomes an minority government or one with a very small majority. An Independent/Green/Other MP would have a lot of sway under such circumstances. The Campaign Group even more so.
These are the calculations for the left of the party both in Islington North and nationally. The question is balancing the extremely high risk of losing and losing ever more power (and emotional toll) with the smaller likelihood of winning a very big prize indeed.
The calculation for non-Corbynites
The fact that Corbyn will not be the candidate for Islington North means that the non-Corbynites - from the Leadership to the local members have decisions to make too.
Primarily, who gets onto the shortlist for the seat from the leadership/NEC (I know the process, I also know what takes place and where there is and isn’t overlap between these things) and then once that shortlist is in place, who the members opt for.
As already mentioned, Islington North is a very safe seat and it’s in London which is where over a quarter of all Labour members live. It is an easy commute to Parliament and would not, therefore, mean tough divisions of time, wrenching family decisions and vast amounts of time spent on travel every sitting week from London to the constituency and back. It ‘s, therefore, an extremely attractive seat for someone to want to represent and this should be a hard fought contest as such.
But if Corbyn does run as an independent, whoever runs against him for Labour will get a tonne of abuse coming their way. This is just a fact. So they will have to be aware that at the very least social media will be an extremely unpleasant place to be and that might well spill out onto the streets as the campaigns ramp up. That will have to be part of the calculation for anyone who does choose to throw their hat into the ring.
Non-Corbynites could impose a candidate through machination deciding that in the long term a loyal MP in a safe seat is of more value to them than stopping a CLP going to war with itself. They may feel that war is inevitable anyway so what do they have to lose by imposing such a candidate. However, candidates selection should be a rigorous testing ground for candidates - even in safe seats. Don’t impose someone - because it makes it look like you don’t think you can win. This would turn your moment of strength into a display of weakness and - given that at least some members would leave with Corbyn - would probably be numerically unnecccessary.
If Corbyn runs and enough of his supporters follow him, that makes the constituency more likely to select a more centrist candidate. However, a good and broad selection of candidates should be offered and it may well be the best choice to make a genuine virtue of this. If Corbyn supporting members think they might have A. a chance of being the candidate or B. a chance of selecting their preferred candidate, this might stem the flow of leavers to a trickle. Which leaves both factions strong, but also means there’s a more united party left to fight the election.
This would be the absolute best thing to ameliorate the hurt feelings of those who were upset that the MP they had previously selected had lost the ability to stand for Labour again but who had chosen to stay in the party. They need to feel they have a candidate in the race with a fair fight. And the sense of the need for ‘fair play’ particularly under such an intense spotlight will be felt well beyond the hard left but by a much wider membership overall.
*****
There is no divination in politics. What I have tried to do here is put myself into the place of those on either side of a difficult question and think about what the calculations they need to be making are. I find thinking things through from more than one angle - especially without taking a position myself on what the right choices are - helps me, and I hope you, my readers, to understand these questions a little better. At the heart of being a good campaigner or a good strategist is not simply to understand your own issues and motivations, but to genuinely try to put yourself into the position of others and think through how you would behave.
What I’ve been up to
We have recorded two editions of the House of Comments both largely focused on the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon and the race for the SNP leadership.
I reviewed a brilliant online Notre Dame and the well written but poorly staged Graceland at the Royal Court.
I was also on GB News. Here I am explaining why I support the UK giving all the support we can to Ukraine.
Questions, comments and arguments are very welcome. Insults will get you summarily blocked on every platform. Hit reply or comment or find me on Twitter at @EmmaBurnell_
I'm in Islington North and joined the LP to vote for Corbyn as leader. Like you I had personal knowledge of his commitment to the diverse local community, in particular his patronage of a local women's mental health charity, the Maya Centre. Personally, I very much hope he decides not to stand. But I believe that's the least likely option which is sad not only for this constituency but also for a future Labour government.
Someone please let me know if a betting agency offers odds on whether if Corbyn runs he will outperform Mike Gapes result in 2019 cos I will take ‘No’ if the odds are more than even