So Jeremy Corbyn has had the whip withdrawn from him for over a year now and this weekend Labour made noises about appointing somebody else to stand in his constituency in the next elections. That of course immediately started speculation about whether or not he should run as an independent or start his own party. There’s little doubt that Corbyn could do this and very likely would win as an independent, but would he do so?
That’s the real question: would Corbyn want to stand in election again in the first place? The man’s seventytwo now, would he want to be in parliament for another five years, pushing eighty at the end of it? Or would he rather spent his time on activism outside of parliament, via his new Project for Peace and Justice? If denied to stand as a Labour candidate, would Corbyn have the will to stand as an independent against his old party? Nothing in his history suggests he has anything but a deep abiding loyalty to Labour even when the party has no loyalty to him or his ideals. He has never shown that sort of spite that could compel him to ‘wreck’ Labour like that.
The other question is what it would accomplish, other than schadenfreude when some parachuted in Starmeroid inevitably loses their deposit? Could a hypothetical left of Labour party build on a Corbyn win in the next elections, or would it be just a stunt, ala Galloway and Respect? Is it actually worthwhile to pursue a parliamentary solution or should the left’s energy be more constructively used outside it, in the unions for example? Is there the infrastructure in place to make this more than just the Corbyn show?
No Comments