Keir Starmer has dashed any hopes Jeremy Corbyn had of returning as a Labour MP again.
The Labour leader said “he doesn’t see the circumstances” in which his predecessor will defend his seat in Islington North for the party at the next election.
Corbyn, who has been an MP for 40 years, had the whip removed and was suspended by Labour over his response to a highly critical antisemitism report in 2020.
Starmer told BBC Radio 4: “I don’t see the circumstances in which that can happen.
“We have not got to the selection of that particular constituency yet, but I don’t see the circumstances in which Jeremy Corbyn will stand as a Labour candidate.”
Asked about whether Corbyn would stand as an independent candidate against Labour, Sir Keir replied: “I can only speak for the Labour party.”
Corbyn had his party membership reinstated within weeks, but Starmer refused to readmit him to the group of Labour MPs.
In his initial response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report, Corbyn claimed the scale of antisemitism in the Labour Party had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons” by opponents both inside and outside Labour, along with the media.
But he later attempted to clarify his comments in a statement to the party, saying concerns about antisemitism are “neither ‘exaggerated’ nor ‘overstated’”.
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