Jeremy Corbyn: Islington North Ground Zero for Labour’s Democratic Soul

Democracy Drowning in the Labour Party’s Authoritarian Riptide

As Labour kicks off its candidate selection process for the Islington North constituency, the writing is emphatically on the wall – the hollowing out of any semblance of internal democracy within the party ranks is nearing completion under Sir Keir Starmer’s increasingly authoritarian stewardship.

It matters not whether you’re a card-carrying Labour member or have never aligned with the party’s historic stances. It ultimately means little if your sympathies lie with Jeremy Corbyn’s democratic socialist vision or Sir Keir Starmer’s embrace of centre-right domestication. For what’s at stake here transcends partisan loyalties and ideological skirmishes. This is a battle for the very soul of representative democracy itself.

As Starmer’s authoritarian pivot nears its tragic denouement with the premeditated excision of Corbyn from contesting his longtime Islington North seat, we bear witness to a full-frontal assault on a founding tenet of the Labour movement – the inviolable right of local communities to choose their own parliamentary candidates, free from the meddling of bureaucratic powerbases.

For a party that historically championed the empowerment of the working class, this flagrant subversion of grassroots democracy marks not just a lamentable fall from grace, but an egregious betrayal of its own raison d’etre. The disenfranchisement of Islington’s constituents is a canary in the coal mine, foreshadowing Labour’s descent into an abyss of authoritarianism antithetical to its avowed values.

One need not be a starry-eyed Corbynista to recognise this looming democratic deficit as an existential threat. For if a fiefdom mentality can override the prerogative of local parties to select their favoured candidate in this instance, where does such hubristic paternalism end? How long until other constituencies find their own choices similarly circumscribed by the diktats of an unaccountable cadre of Westminster Machiavelli’s??

This is a pivotal juncture at which all who cherish the sanctity of democratic ideals must take a stand, lest the long-held liberties so central to the British political tradition be inscribed into history’s annals as an ill-fated flirtation with self-governance. The path ahead leads either towards a future of civic empowerment…or the suffocating miasma of a one-party state masquerading behind hollow sloganeering.

Corbyn could be set for the courts…

Engaging in a legal battle to uphold the democratic right of people to choose their preferred candidate could serve Jeremy Corbyn and the public interest significantly. Such an action would not only assert fundamental democratic principles but also potentially inflict more damage on Keir Starmer than simply walking away after over half a century of membership with the Labour Party, including 41 years as a Labour MP.

The Hollowing of Labour’s Democratic Soul

The unceremonious barring of Jeremy Corbyn, a decades-long stalwart who commanded a staggering 26,000 vote majority in this very seat just five years prior, lays bare the utter disregard for the grassroots now endemic to Labour’s corridors of power. A man whose 41-year tenure as a principled voice for the disenfranchised is evidently no longer a credential to be respected, but a blight to be expunged in service of “electability.”

The farcical pretext for this excommunication? Corbyn’s perceived transgressions in the aftermath of a whitewash report that many rightly recognised as a politically motivated hatchet job. His sin? Daring to suggest that the scourge of anti-Semitism had been overstated by his internal opponents seeking to undermine a transformative left-wing agenda.

With local members effectively neutered from any involvement in the shortlisting process, the party machinery now moves full steam ahead to impose its own preordained candidates upon Islington’s constituents – a ritual charade of “democracy” devoid of any substantive choice.

Rumours have swirled that he may take the path of standing as an independent rather than lending credibility to such a nakedly undemocratic process.

Yet such whispers fundamentally misconstrue the essence of the man and the democratic principles he has embodied throughout his near half-century of service. For Corbyn to capitulate to running as an independent without a legal fight would be to abdicate his very raison d’etre – the empowerment of the grassroots Labour movement he has dedicated his life to uplifting.

As a lifelong believer in the Bennite creed of internal party democracy, Corbyn comprehends perhaps better than any contemporary figure that true change can only be catalyzed from within. To abandon the field of struggle against Starmer’s regressive authoritarianism would be to concede defeat not just for himself, but for the disenfranchised masses yearning for legitimate socialist representation.

There remains a compelling argument that to abdicate the fight for Islington North without a stand would be to surrender the very essence of representative democracy itself. For if a constituency cannot even select its own candidate, beholden only to the will of its electorate rather than the dictates of a bureaucratic clique, what legitimacy remains?

Thomas Glasman makes the point that since the NEC found that @jeremycorbyn hasn't broken any rules, his CLP should have the right to select him as a candidate if they wish:
"Its a principle whether CLPs have a democratic right to select who they wish to have as an MP" @UKLabour pic.twitter.com/xb1rVFgopd

— Labour Heartlands (@Labourheartland) March 1, 2023

As grassroots voices like Momentum rightly assert, the democratic prerogative rests solely with Islington North’s long-standing Labour members – not the Westminster courtiers currently piloting their party’s decisive lurch to the political centre. Jeremy Corbyn’s decades of unwavering service to his constituents demands no less than the chance to make his case directly to them, unobstructed by procedural machinations.

For make no mistake, Sir Keir Starmer’s cross-hairs extend far beyond the former leader’s public repudiation. This is an ideological offensive, systematically purging the remaining bastions of socialistic thought from a “reformed” Labour Party realigned to preserve capital’s interests above all else.

Should Corbyn indeed opt for the independent path, bequeathing an easy default victory to Starmer’s anointed candidate, it would not only undermine his legacy of championing the disenfranchised. It would be a damning capitulation in the face of naked authoritarianism – an abject surrender of the foundational principles the Labour movement was built upon.

The fight for democracy must begin at home, lest it be rendered an empty platitude mouthed by careerists utterly untethered from its essence. For if Labour cannot uphold the inalienable rights of its own members within its own ranks, how can it credibly pledge fidelity to those same values on the national stage?

In Islington North, the battle lines have been drawn. Not merely over one fiercely contested parliamentary seat, but over the very soul of what remains of democratic socialism’s legitimacy in modern Britain.

Of course, I may be wrong and Corbyn walks away to stand as an independent or even write his memoirs in an allotment shed and who would blame him, but I think not…