IFour weeks before election day, I spoke to the Labour constituency councillor in Holborn and St Pancras, central London. He was leaving home to campaign in Barnet, a few miles away in north London. This was not at all unusual. Keir Starmer’s constituency was guaranteed victory and has been Republican-dominated since its creation in 1983. Neighbouring Islington North had once been in a similar situation, having been Labour-dominated since 1937 and having had a couple of turbulent years for the Social Democrats in the 1980s. Their campaigners had previously twinned with Stevenage, but they were considered more useful there than in their own home town.
Bookmakers are offering odds of 1/250 and 1/500 on Starmer winning the constituency, making it one of the safest bets in the general election. The outcome in Islington is harder to predict because Jeremy Corbyn is running as an independent. His popularity as the local MP is well known. But as Corbyn’s spokesman Ollie DuRose told me, there are people on the doorstep who say, “Of course I’m voting for Jeremy. I’m voting for Labour.” From this distance, it’s hard to tell whether the party or Starmer will win, after it’s obvious to everyone that the two are at odds.
Nearly all of the constituency Labour members I spoke to spoke on the condition of anonymity because the activities they were engaged in were ones that would get them expelled from the party (Corbyn’s election campaign, for example, Labour Party candidate Sometimes they are embroiled in local rivalries and animosities with epic histories stretching back decades, and exposing them to the media would be an awkward escalation.
No other party is seriously competing in either constituency, but there are independent candidates from the left in each. A broader perspectiveThere are 459 independent candidates running in this election, about 10% of the total and more than double the number in 2015. But the battle between the reds varies from place to place in theme and symmetry.
Starmer’s opponent is Andrew Feinstein, a 60-year-old filmmaker and author who was an ANC activist in South Africa. Feinstein’s supporters say Starmer is standing because he has a “totally low profile”. “You walk down the streets of Camden right now and there’s not a single Labour poster in sight,” he says.
Feinstein’s issue is also Palestine. A “Gaza week” in Kentish Town in early June featured speeches and rallies almost every day, with opponents flying Israeli flags. Four people were arrested on June 6, but police refused to respond, with both sides arguing that the other side had caused the disturbances. Labour’s blunt and cautious stance on Israel’s Gaza war has sparked a wave of independent candidates, especially in Muslim-majority areas. For some Labour supporters, the manifesto’s commitment to recognize a Palestinian state will ease tensions, but not for all.
Right-wing politicians and the mainstream media talk a lot about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, but they have little understanding of what Palestine means within the party. The vast majority of Labour members support Palestinian rights (a significant majority support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Israel, a leader in the Palestinian movement, believes there is a fundamental problem with Israel: that oppression of people in broad daylight leads to violations of human rights everywhere. Palestine has also traditionally been a conduit for discussing U.S. imperialism, and Israel has come to symbolize a broader disillusionment with the radical promise of a bygone era, sliding from the early left-wing ideals of the kibbutz to its current political dominance by the far right.
The debate over Palestine and Israel at the constituency Labour meeting was an unspoken battle between the left and right wings of the party. “Basically, if you didn’t agree with their views on Israel/Palestine and stopping the war, you were treated like dirt,” says one Nalgand supporter (who was a long-time Islington North member but inactive during the Corbyn years).
These controversies have offended many Jewish members, but it is not that simple. Many non-Jewish center-right members have also been offended, and many Banished Their pro-Palestinian views are Jewish. There are very deep convictions here. It would be remiss not to point out that everything that pro-Palestinian advocates warned and feared, and worse, has come true over the course of the war. While Feinstein poses no direct electoral threat to Starmer, this rift is unlikely to disappear easily.
The bookmakers have Corbyn as the overwhelming favourite in Islington North. He’s been an MP for 41 years. His name recognition alone, not to mention the number of people he’s helped in that time, is inconceivable. His supporters’ groundswell is impressive, with at least 1,000 people signed up to go door-to-door, giving Nargand a sizable mountain to climb, but he also has a sizeable army of activists. Some are drawn from outside the area (as with Corbyn), some from within the constituency Labour Party, but they’re not his old comrades. Nargand, naturally, also has the backing of party heavyweights. “They brought in Neil Kinnock. It’s unimaginable they’d exploit old, vulnerable people like this,” said Durose, Corbyn’s cheeky spokesman.
This is not just about whether Labour is radical enough, or about everyday issues like the cost of living crisis and the NHS – which Mr Corbyn’s team say are the main dividing lines between him and his former private health opponent – it is also about candidate selection and internal party democracy.
Islington North hadn’t had a Labour candidate for two years, but now a candidate has been appointed suddenly, without any involvement from party members, to avoid a situation where the selection process continues even after Corbyn announces his candidacy. Nargund declined to be interviewed (to be fair, national newspapers are not a priority). Islington Tribune (One ally said they openly support Corbyn, but the paper argues he is given a lot of space because he is the only person they communicate with.) Election Campaign The Camden New Journal is confused.
There has always been a lot of conflict in the relationship between Labour’s central command and its members, and lively debate about whether a strong party membership is good or bad for the country as a whole (just look at what happens when the Conservatives get their way). The “common sense” view is that all party members are nutjobs best ignored, but this is hugely significant for a democracy – it would mean abandoning the only tangible, transparent mechanism by which people can be represented.
It also raises the question of whose influence trumps that of party members. Is there really a body of “ordinary” people whose “ordinary” political aspirations are easily readable? Is the media the only way to best convey these to the party elites? Labour members, at least, are not going to give in without a fight, and tensions are taking on new intensity as the election rolls along like a giant tank around a fragile alliance.
