The 74-year-old ex-party leader will stand in his constituency of Islington North after being dropped from Labour candidate shortlist.
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent candidate in the United Kingdom’s general election on July 4, a move that could lead to a potential upset for Labour in his north London seat.
Corbyn, who has represented the London constituency of Islington North for more than 40 years, announced on Friday that he would contest the seat to be “an independent voice for equality, democracy and peace”.
Labour officials have not included the 74-year-old in a shortlist of candidates for the seat, prompting his decision to go it alone.
“I want our political parties to be democratic, but members of Islington North Labour have been denied the right to choose a candidate,” Corbyn said in a video announcing his plan.
“So we have to stand up. We have to stand up and say, we’re not taking this anymore. We will assert our rights. That’s why I’m standing to be an independent candidate for the people of Islington North.”
Labour suspended Corbyn in 2020 following a report into how anti-Semitism complaints were handled under his leadership. Corbyn was Labour leader at the last election in 2019 and has held the Islington North seat since 1983.
Corbyn, who has been a longtime, staunch critic of Israel’s policies on Palestine, had acknowledged some of the findings during his leadership, adding that Jewish members of the Labour Party and the wider community “were right to expect us to deal with it”. But he added that he did not accept “all the findings”.
An Al Jazeera investigation into the crisis found that senior Labour officials had at the time attempted to undermine support for Corbyn and, on some occasions, silence debate about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
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