Jeremy Corbyn’s Supporters Drawing Up Proposal to Reinstate Former Labour Leader as Party MP

In October 2020, Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the UK Labour Party after insisting that anti-Semitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents […] as well as by much of the media”.

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters have hammered out a plan that may provide UK Labour Party members with the power to reinstate Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.

According to The Guardian, a proposal made by activists from the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy stipulates that an urgent rule change is needed to close a “gaping hole in the Labour Party rule book” and hand more authority to party members.

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, left, and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, during a head to head live Election Debate at the BBC TV studios

© AP Photo / Jeff Overs

The newspaper cited the proposal as saying that “the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] is not accountable to [the] annual [Labour] conference” and that the new plan “would require the PLP and chief whip to report directly to the conference, including on MPs’ discipline, with the conference able to confirm or reject disciplinary decisions that are of concern to delegates”.

The Guardian reported that the possible rule change is seen as a way to reinstate Corbyn, a move that was criticised by Charlotte Nichols, ​​the Labour MP for Warrington North.

“The last thing we need is a rule change that could lead to the second guessing of the outcome of bullying and sexual harassment cases or the debate of individual disciplinary cases. This is not how our complaints system should run and should be rejected if it goes to conference floor”, she told The Guardian.

With the rule change-related proposal already circulating across the Labour Party, its local branches are facing calls to support the rule change during the upcoming Labour conference, something that is expected to embarrass the party’s leader Keir Starmer.

Corbyn’s Suspension

As far as Corbyn is concerned, the former Labour leader was suspended from the party in October 2020 over comments he made following the publication of a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which revealed that its investigation “into antisemitism in the Labour Party” had found “unlawful acts of discrimination and harassment”.

Sir Keir Starmer outside a polling station

© REUTERS / TOM NICHOLSON

Corbyn responded by claiming that while "one anti-Semite is one too many" in the party, "the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”.

In November 2020, he was re-admitted to the party, but Starmer at the time refused to restore the parliamentary whip to Corbyn, vowing to continue disciplinary action against the former leader through channels outside the party.

Starmer stressed that as leader of the PLP, he had the right to withdraw the whip from MPs regardless of the decisions of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), on which he sits along with representatives of the PLP and shadow cabinet.

"Since I was elected Labour leader, I have made it my mission to root out anti-Semitism from the Labour Party”, Starmer stated. He added that Corbyn's response to the published report had "undermined and set back our [Labour’s] work in restoring trust and confidence in the Labour Party’s ability to tackle anti-Semitism”.

In mid-December 2019, Corbyn said that he would not lead the party “in any future general election campaign”, remarks that he made following the UK’s 2019 general election, which saw Labour’s worst performance since 1935. This triggered a leadership election in 2020 that was finally won by Starmer, Corbyn’s shadow Brexit secretary.