Politics: Could Brexit Cost Corbyn his Own Seat?

If there was ever a British political leader ripe for an insurgency campaign in his own seat it is Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn right now.

Yes, Corbyn has held one of Labour’s safest seats, Islington North for 34 years. But it is also one of the most anti-Brexit seats in Britain, Corbyn’s weak performance on the EU and other issues has fuelled a huge backlash against him among many Labour voters, and this election is likely to see an unprecedented amount of “tactical voting” as voters abandon their  normal party allegiance.

“More than 78% of people in this seat voted to remain in the EU last year and everyone knows that a lot of Labour supporters are despairing about the role Jeremy Corbyn has played,” says Lib Dem candidate Keith Angus. Breaking off from a campaign appearance outside Tufnell Park station, Argus told Felix Magazine that “no seat is safe in the age of Brexit.”

In 2015 Corbyn won 60% of the vote, ahead of the Conservatives with 17%, Greens with 10%, Lib Dems with 8% and UKIP 4%. That poor Lib Dem result was an aberration caused by the national backlash against the party’s five-year coalition with the Tories, and in the previous two elections the Lib Dems came second with an average of 29% to Corbyn’s 53%. On those earlier results Corbyn would be defeated if the Lib Dems received a shift of 10 percentage points from disaffected Labour voters, and gained a few more percent of anti-Brexit voters from the Tories and Greens, who averaged 13% and 5% in the 2010 and 2005 elections. A recent Yougov poll found that 48% of  Labour voters from 2015 have  decided to back to another party on June 8 or are considering it.

The problem for those who dream of solving Labour’s Corbynista-moderates schism by toppling the ruler in his own seat is that there is a scramble in Islington North to become the main anti-Corbyn candidate. Labour donor Michael Foster has pledged to stand as a moderate Labour independent unless Corbyn resigns the leadership and the two firmly anti-Brexit national parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, have rejected the sort of cooperation agreement they have reached elsewhere. Prominent anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller has also threatened to target Corbyn and her campaign group could spend up to £15,000 behind an as-yet unannounced candidate in Islington North.

“Islington in Europe”, the local cross-party anti-Brexit campaign group, fears that the Labour dissident Foster, a celebrity agent and former Labour parliamentary candidate,  will further splinter the anti-Brexit vote. Spokesman Nick Turton, a one-time Labour aide who has switched to the Lib Dems over the issue of Brexit, says that Islington in Europe still hopes that the Lib Dem candidate Keith Angus and the Greens’ Caroline Russell will take a lesson from other cooperation deals which have been inspired by Brexit’s ability to cut across normal party lines.

“Tactical voting has been on the rise for a long time but for the first time we are now seeing ‘tactical standing’ as parties on both sides of the Brexit issue cooperate like never before,” Turton said.“We asked Keith and Caroline to talk and try to come to an alliance against Corbyn because of his atrocious leadership on Brexit but neither side has agreed.”

One possibility would be for the Lib Dems and Greens to divide between themselves Corbyn’s seat and neighbouring Islington South &Finsbury, held by his close ally Emily Thornberry. The role model would be a similar deal in Brighton, where the Lib Dems have agreed to stand aside for Green MP Caroline Lucas in her seat of Brighton Pavilion, while the Greens have reciprocated in neighbouring Brighton Kemptown. The Greens agreed not to campaign against the Lib Dems in the Richmond Park by-election last year, and are also not running in Ealing Central & Acton to try to help anti-Brexit Labour MP Rupa Huq to  retain her seat.

The Greens argue that the 2015 result in Islington North puts them in the stronger position to be a unity candidate against Corbyn, noting that they also outdid the Lib Dems in the most recent elections for Islington Council, where Russell was the only non-Labour candidate elected to the 48-seat council.

The Lib Dems’ Keith Angus, a 41-year-old financial security worker, insists that a Green candidate is less likely to attract the votes of Conservative Remainers, noting that the Lib Dems controlled the local council from 2002-10. “If this was an area with widespread support for the Greens we would be prepared to have an honest conversation about who has the better prospects of taking on Corbyn but it’s just not natural Green territory,” he said.

While some local Conservative voters may switch support to an anti-Brexit candidate the hard heads at Tory headquarters are unlikely to make any special efforts to topple Corbyn. Instead they will adopt the approach of the Tottenham fans who taunted the manager of their fierce rival Arsenal during their derby on the weekend, chanting “We want you to stay, we want you to stay, Arsene Wenger, we want you to stay!”

The Conservatives have been slow to nominate a candidate for the seat and are not bothering to use any personal support built up by their 2015 candidate,  Tory policy adviser Alex Burghart. Instead Burghart is vying to become the party’s candidate for the Essex seat vacated by former minister Sir Eric Pickles.

by Peter Wilson

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