Britain’s Labour Party is in “deep crisis” as it has continued with Tory policies that have not delivered for the poorest communities, the party’s former leader Jeremy Corbyn has said.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Corbyn said he saw no “huge difference” between the potential candidates for the party leadership following growing dissatisfaction with prime minister Keir Starmer.
If it is a three-way race between Starmer, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting, Corbyn does not entirely discount the chances of Starmer surviving as his rivals may split the opposition vote.
“The Labour Party leadership is going to be an interesting one, but on current form there isn’t really any huge difference between the candidates going forward,” he said on the sidelines of the Robert Tressell Festival in Dublin on Saturday.
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He was not confident his former party can restore its electoral fortunes between now and the next general election, whoever the leader is.
“I would be very surprised if they can, because the disillusionment with Labour is huge. In the local elections, Labour seemed to me to have a problem of maintaining its activist base. And if the party loses its activist base, then it ceases to be that force in the community. I think they’ve got real problems.”
Corbyn was Labour leader from 2015 to 2020. Under Keir Starmer he lost the party whip after a damning official report on anti-Semitism in the party while he was leader. He went on to become an independent MP.
Today he believes Labour is in “deep crisis” as a result of the government “basically carrying on with the Tory policies, and that is obviously not delivering for the poorest communities”.
“They’re faced with, as we all are, the growth of the far right on a very populist platform blaming refugees and migrants for the housing problems, the health problems and everything else.
“Labour, unfortunately, instead of standing up against this, have played into it by now producing information about how many refugees they’ve deported, how many boats they’ve stopped, and so on. But where’s our humanity?”
He said he understood the feeling of “isolation and betrayal” that Starmer may now be experiencing in facing a leadership contest.
“I had plenty of that done to me, but I don’t indulge in personality attacks or personality politics,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, the political policies and principles are more important.”
Starmer, he said, knows how these things work.
“Well, he should know what it’s about, because he was a member of the team when the coup took place against me in 2016. The difference is that the coup against me was from within the parliamentary Labour Party and the shadow cabinet, but the support I had was from the party membership and the wider public.
“Remember, I was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015 and the coup took place seven months into 2016, June-July time. I won that vote, and then less than a year later, we got the best result for Labour this century (in total votes received). That shows you can turn things around if you’ve got the grassroots and the people with you. Starmer doesn’t appear to have that at a personal level.”
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One difficulty, he suggests, is that Starmer’s election victory in 2024 was “a loveless landslide”.
“The electoral system worked magnificently for Labour and gave them this huge majority on the lowest ever vote for a winning party in an election – and indeed the total vote for Labour in 2024 was less than I got in 2019 when I lost the election, and I do understand I lost.”
Asked if he expects to return to the party that expelled him at some point, he said: “I don’t think the Labour Party is keen on having me back, so no, I don’t.”
On Ireland, Corbyn said his connections with the Republic remain strong and he usually visits several times a year.
“I love being in Ireland. I love the Irish community in my area. I’m here today to say thank you to Michael D [Higgins] because I always thought it wonderful that Michael D, being a poet, was president of Ireland.
“I think it maybe should become a condition in the future: all poets must be presidents, or all presidents must be poets.”
