The inevitable ban of Jeremy Corbyn

On this final Monday of March, what was made inevitable when Sir Kier Starmer was elected Labour leader nearly 35 months ago has finally come to pass. Through the means of a motion to the NEC proposed by the Knight of the Realm himself, Jeremy Corbyn has been prevented from standing to be reselected as Labour’s MP for Islington North.

This comes in the same week as the Labour Leadership unilaterally deselected 19 Councillors on Leicester City Council, the majority of whom being BAME Cllrs, and is only the latest in an endless list of leadership manipulations of parliamentary selection processes across the country.

This relentless attack on the left by the Labour Party should be of no surprise to anyone, but what should horrify socialists is the response by fellow left-wing Labour MPs to this outrageous contravention of justice:

Senior members of the Labour left have absolutely no problem in calling out the outrageous contravention of democracy being undertaken by Starmer and his chums but as they have for the last 3 years, they fail to show any leadership or direction for practical means of fighting back. Yes John McDonnell, we all realise what just happened is bad, what are YOU going to do about it?

As a fellow socialist points out in reply to the Socialist Campaign Group’s vapid response, the goal of socialist MPs in recent years has been to keep their heads down, keep their mouths shut and hope that they aren’t thrown out of the party like so many regular party members have. Well now that cowardice has led to the passing of a motion which puts them ALL in the firing line for deselection as MPs. Their attempts to maintain their positions in Parliament has now ironically led to a precedent in Labour Party rulings that will facilitate them all being removed.

What is perhaps the most depressing is Jeremy’s response:

The calls for him to stand as an independent or to form a new party have never been louder, and yet… “We are not going anywhere.” I am deeply sorry to inform you Mr Corbyn, but we’ve all already left.

When Starmer set out his pledges during the Leadership election in 2020, a great number of people identified at the time that he was lying and of course as a result of that lie, he has now been able to achieve the exact political opposite of those pledges. A part of me is hoping that when Jeremy is making statements like these on his social media pages, he too is not sharing with us the full truth and that behind the scenes, measures are already been taken for the creation of a new party.

But we all know Jeremy is too much of an honest man to make such a deception. The sad truth is that the socialist leaders we’ve put our faith in since 2015 don’t have plan, they aren’t dedicated to pushing a socialist agenda in a practical manner and - frankly - their inactivity has directly led us to this point of utter despair.

It was local activists, campaigning tirelessly which brought Corbyn’s labour such incredible electoral successes against all media and establishment bias, why do we need to wait for Labour MPs to lead the way now?

Socialists and Environmentalists are already organising across the country. Based along our community here on the Yorkshire Coast and already expanding further afield, the Social Justice Party is right now creating its constitutional structure to build a party where a limited few cannot single-handedly control party elections and where members can speak freely and develop policy openly without fear of punishment from above. Today has proved that we cannot change the political direction of the Labour Party from within and those who remain members have to seriously consider what sort of party they’re helping to support.

We must build political strength as a movement from the ground up, in the heart of our communities and at every political level.

Sign up to build a grassroots, socialist movement at https://socialjusticeparty.uk/