Kmflett's Blog

A reminder why Jeremy Corbyn’s politics were popular & a threat to the machine

After Keir Starmer’s diktat that he won’t stand again as a Labour candidate its worth recalling why Jeremy Corbyn’s Haringey years have led to lasting respect in the area

I last saw Jeremy Corbyn in person in April 2022 at the Bernie Grant lecture. In 2020 he delivered the 20th anniversary Bernie Grant lecture at the Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham. His speech that day ranged across issues from anti-racism, the history of slavery and the rise of Black Sections in the Labour Party. David Lammy who later distanced himself from his earlier decision to nominate Corbyn for the Labour leadership in 2015 was also there and spoke. It’s true as David Lammy says that no one including Jeremy Corbyn himself I suspect expected him to become Labour leader but that is another matter.

Corbyn has always been up front about his politics and his staunch anti-racism

We were both young men with beards in the North London labour movement in the 1970s (and we still are except not young) even if we had diverging views on the best way to achieve socialist advance.

Corbyn played a key role in the Battle of Wood Green on 23rd April 1977, one of the landmark battles which grappled with the rise of the fascist National Front, eventually successfully:

Corbyn was the organiser of that demonstration. He made sure that Councillors of all parties were on board and managed to unite those who wanted a peaceful protest and those who wanted to confront the fascists as well.

The local Hornsey Journal paper had the following quote from him:

From Haringey Councillor Jeremy Corbyn on behalf of the organisers of the counter-demonstrations ‘Why did the police allow the National Front to march through the busiest shopping area of North London, an area populated by several of London’s largest immigrant communities? It must be clear from Saturday’s demonstration that there is the widest possible opposition to these modern day fascists. How much longer must it be before fascism is banned from our streets?’

Since then Corbyn has continued to be an anti-racist activist. Some politicians as they progress through their careers prefer to play down or rewrite their past. By contrast Corbyn is always prepared to remember what he did on that April day in 1977 and was the keynote speaker at the 40th anniversary event in 2017.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Haringey years are still remembered and respected by many in the Borough as is of course is his friend and political ally the late Tottenham MP Bernie Grant.

Starmer’s diktat shows what treachery such politics can meet. The fight for socialist politics and organisation in several arenas goes on