Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has retained his seat in the UK parliament after running as an independent in Thursday’s general election.
Corbyn won 24,120 votes in London’s Islington North constituency, comfortably ahead of Labour rival Praful Nargund, who received 16,873 votes. Turnout in the constituency was 67.5%, 4% less than in 2019, The Guardian reported on Friday.
The 75-year-old Corbyn has represented Islington North as an MP since 1983. A long-time advocate of Palestinian rights, he led Labour from 2015 to 2020, but was ousted from his position and suspended over his response to allegations of anti-Semitism in the party during his tenure.
Corbyn insisted that the claims were “dramatically overstated for political reasons,” while his supporters have argued that he was the victim of a smear campaign by party rivals due to his anti-austerity and anti-war stance. An Al Jazeera investigation concluded that Israel was behind a move to frame Corbyn as an anti-Semite.
Earlier this year, Corbyn’s successor as Labour leader, Keir Starmer, banned him from representing the party in the general election. He was officially expelled from Labour in May after announcing he would campaign as an independent.
After running against his former party and winning, Corbyn said that by electing him for the 11th time, the people of Islington North “have shown what kinder, gentler and more sensible, more inclusive politics can bring about.”
“I couldn't be more proud of my constituency than I am tonight and proud of our team that brought this result,” he stressed.
Despite Nargund’s failure in Islington North, Labour has delivered a crushing defeat to the Conservatives, securing its first election victory since 2005 with an estimated 412 seats and a large parliamentary majority.
When asked what kind of prime minister Starmer would make, Corbyn replied: “Well, let’s see what happens.”
The manifesto put forward by the current Labour leader “is thin to put it mildly and doesn’t offer a serious economic alternative to what the Conservative government is doing. And so the demands on [Starmer] are going to be huge,” he argued.
“If you don’t give yourself space to increase spending on the desperate social needs… then I think there are going to be political problems. The demands from the people are going to be huge,” Corbyn warned.