Jeremy Corbyn to run as an independent in UK general election | Elections News

The 74-year-old ex-party chief will stand in his constituency of Islington North after being dropped from Labour candidate shortlist.

Former Labour Get together chief Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an unbiased candidate in the UK’s common election on July 4, a transfer that might result in a possible upset for Labour in his north London seat.

Corbyn, who has represented the London constituency of Islington North for greater than 40 years, introduced on Friday that he would contest the seat to be “an unbiased voice for equality, democracy and peace”.

Labour officers haven’t included the 74-year-old in a shortlist of candidates for the seat, prompting his determination to go it alone.

“I would like our political events to be democratic, however members of Islington North Labour have been denied the best to decide on a candidate,” Corbyn stated in a video saying his plan.

“So we’ve to face up. Now we have to face up and say, we’re not taking this anymore. We are going to assert our rights. That’s why I’m standing to be an unbiased candidate for the individuals of Islington North.”

Labour suspended Corbyn in 2020 following a report into how anti-Semitism complaints had been dealt with below his management. Corbyn was Labour chief on the final election in 2019 and has held the Islington North seat since 1983.

Corbyn, who has been a longtime, staunch critic of Israel’s insurance policies on Palestine, had acknowledged a number of the findings throughout his management, including that Jewish members of the Labour Get together and the broader neighborhood “had been proper to anticipate us to take care of it”. However he added that he didn’t settle for “all of the findings”.

An Al Jazeera investigation into the disaster discovered that senior Labour officers had on the time tried to undermine help for Corbyn and, on some events, silence debate about Israel’s remedy of Palestinians.

Critic of Israel’s conflict on Gaza

After the October 7 assault by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel and the beginning of Israel’s relentless conflict on Gaza that killed over 35,000 Palestinians, Corbyn emerged anew as a critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the general coverage of the Israeli authorities.

In November, he was one of many earliest politicians to induce the Worldwide Legal Courtroom (ICC) to analyze what he described as a “genocide” in Gaza.

“Folks in Gaza have been dwelling below a blockade for the previous 16 years and the Israeli occupation controls most of what goes out and in of Gaza,” he stated, whereas additionally accusing politicians around the globe of giving Israel a “inexperienced gentle to starve and slaughter the Palestinian individuals within the identify of self-defence”.

He stated the Hamas-led assault can not justify “the indiscriminate bombing and hunger of the Palestinian individuals, who’re being punished for a heinous crime they didn’t commit”.

Since October, Corbyn has additionally joined a number of protests within the UK denouncing Israel’s navy operation in Gaza.

On Thursday, UK political leaders kicked off six weeks of campaigning earlier than the nation votes for a brand new authorities on July 4.

A snap Survation ballot of voting intentions after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement put centre-left Labour on 48 factors – its highest since November 2022 and 21 factors forward of the governing Conservatives, at 27.

Survation stated the outcomes had been per Labour’s polling all through 2023 and this yr. Different surveys have advised related outcomes.