Sir Keir Starmer has for the first time unequivocally barred his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate at the next general election as he invited his critics to leave the party.
On an “important day” for Labour, Sir Keir welcomed the equalities watchdog’s decision to lift the party out of two years of special measures over its past failings on antisemitism.
He used a speech on Wednesday to invite his opponents on the Labour left to leave the party which he said is now “unrecognisable” from its form under Mr Corbyn.
Unequivocally, Keir Starmer says Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour candidate at the next general election pic.twitter.com/xTcmg50k1I
— Sam Blewett (@BlewettSam) February 15, 2023
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“Let me be very clear, Jeremy Corbyn will not stand at the next general election as a Labour Party candidate,” Sir Keir said in east London.
“What I said about the party changing I meant and we are not going back.”
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had been monitoring Labour since ruling in 2020 it was responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination under Mr Corbyn.
But on Wednesday the watchdog judged that under Sir Keir Labour has improved its complaints and training procedures to protect current and future party members.
We have concluded our monitoring of @UKLabour’s ‘Action Plan for Driving out Antisemitism’.
Read our full statement 👉 https://t.co/hOSgIkN8wu pic.twitter.com/5IooXKSlmDAdvertisement— EHRC (@EHRC) February 15, 2023
Mr Corbyn was suspended from the parliamentary party over his response to EHRC’s damning report in 2020 and now sits as an independent MP.
Sir Keir has long indicated Mr Corbyn will not be standing again for Labour but this is the first time he confirmed the barring of the veteran MP who led the party to two election defeats.
Mr Corbyn’s next steps are unclear, but if he decides to run as an independent MP Labour would face a challenge to win his seat of Islington North.
The left-wing veteran commands significant local support there having represented the London constituency for forty years.
Sir Keir reiterated his vow that anyone who downplays antisemitism will be treated with “zero patience or tolerance” and acknowledged it is not “the end of the road” for tackling the issue.
“I understand that some people won’t like the changes we’ve made but I say this with all candour, the Labour Party is unrecognisable from 2019 and it will never go back,” he said.
“It will never again be a party captured by narrow interest, it will never again lose sight of its purpose or its morals. And it will never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry.
“If you don’t like that, if you don’t like the changes we’ve made, I say the door is open and you can leave.”
Asked whether he would now proscribe the Corbyn-backing Momentum campaign, Sir Keir said he does not have the power to take that action but reiterated his open-door policy to opponents.
He was introduced to the podium in Toynbee Hall by the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl.
She said the idea of addressing the audience before the Labour leader “not too long ago” would “simply would be an impossibility”.
“At the next election I believe all British Jews will once again be free to vote according to their political persuasion rather than out of fear,” she said.
Though she offered a “note of caution” that there are still “issues with antisemitism particularly within the grassroots” of the Labour Party.
The EHRC’s damning investigation published in October 2020 found evidence of “political interference” by Mr Corbyn’s office in the complaints process.
The watchdog said there had been “inexcusable” failures which “appeared to be a result of a lack of willingness to tackle anti-Semitism rather than an inability to do so”.
Mr Corbyn claimed the scale of the problem had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”.
On Wednesday the EHRC announced that its action plan for Labour to address breaches of the Equality Act concluded at the end of January and it was satisfied with the reforms.
Among the watchdog’s demands were for Labour to commit to zero-tolerance of antisemitism and to set up an independent complaints handling process.
Consultation over the reforms had to include the Jewish community, social media guidelines had to be tightened and due diligence checks had to be strengthened on candidates.
