Senior Labour sources have told the JC that Jeremy Corbyn would not be allowed to rejoin the Labour Party should he attempt to.
The former Labour leader’s close ally Diane Abbott, the veteran left-wing MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, was last week readmitted after a suspension and a formal warning.
Jewish communal organisations have expressed serious concerns about her readmission to the party.
Labour’s decision to restore the whip came after the completion of an investigation into remarks she initially made in a letter to the Observer in 2023, suggesting Jews do not experience racism, but rather “prejudice” similar to that that experienced by “redheads”.
Suspended after the letter’s publication, she was readmitted just before 2024 election, only to be given a new suspension after she appeared to double down on the original remarks, saying it is “silly” to suggest that racism “which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism”.
Amid Jewish community concern over the restoration of the whip to Abbott, two senior Labour sources have told the JC that her long-term ally Corbyn would not be allowed to return to the party of government.
One source suggested that any attempt by Corbyn to apply to rejoin the Labour Party would be rejected by the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC).
Corbyn, the MP for Islington North, stood against his party as an independent candidate at the last general election.
According to the party’s rulebook, “Standing for public election in opposition to a Party candidate”, is considered a “proscribed act”, which can result in the termination of membership.
Similarly supporting or being a member of a different parliamentary party is considered a “prohibited act”, which can also result in the termination of party membership.
The NEC does, however, have the power to reinstate an individual’s membership of the Labour Party, but should Corbyn attempt to do so, he would be blocked and, according to one source: “Wouldn’t get pass the NEC.”
Another suggested that only members of the NEC affiliated to Corbynite faction Momentum “would have the remotest interest in this” and they do not possess a majority on the party’s governing body.
In May, despite appeals by Corbyn’s former chancellor John McDonnell, sources close to Andy Burnham told the JC that he did not back calls for the former leader to be readmitted to the Labour benches.
Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party for stating that that the scale of antisemitism in it under his leadership had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”.
The Labour Party was found by the Equality and Human Rights Council (EHRC) to have been responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination in its report on antisemitism within the party.
Corbyn was blocked from standing as a Labour candidate but won his Islington North constituency as an independent.
He has since formed a new party called Your Party with Zara Sultana, the MP for Coventry South who had the whip suspended for voting against the two-child benefit cap in 2024 and resigned from Labour last year.
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