Jeremy Corbyn: Labour to select candidate for Islington North seat

Labour has begun the process of choosing a new candidate to replace former party leader Jeremy Corbyn in London’s Islington North constituency.

The 74-year-old has been sitting as an independent MP since 2020 when he had the Labour whip suspended.

A Labour source said the party had moved away from the man who led Labour between 2015 and 2020 and he was not part of the party’s future.

A shortlist is due to be revealed on 23 May and a candidate declared on 1 June.

The former Labour leader, who has been the MP in Islington North since 1983, was blocked last year from standing for Labour at the next election by the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC).

Mr Corbyn is still a member of the Labour Party but sits as an independent MP in Parliament after being suspended over his reaction to a highly critical report on antisemitism, having said he thought its scale within Labour had been “dramatically overstated”.

At the time, the Labour Party said Mr Corbyn had been suspended for “a failure to retract his words”, but Mr Corbyn called the move “political”.