David Lammy. Nominates Corbyn for leader 2015. Deputy Prime Minister 2025
I’m a long time Tottenham resident and the fact that David Lammy, born and brought up in central Tottenham, is now Deputy PM is worthy of note. Its almost in the ‘From Pitman to Parliament’ genre of memoirs of early Labour MPs.
David Lammy has been Labour MP for Tottenham since June 2000 replacing the late Bernie Grant and for the majority of that time I was Chair or Secretary of Haringey Trades Union Council. I stepped down from the role in 2020 but remain a delegate.
Obviously I worked with David as the Labour MP and before that, briefly, gave him a platform during the 2000 London Assembly elections when he appeared as a stand in for the late Nicky Gavron at a Trades Council hustings.
He was by no means unengaged with constituency issues, raising matters on Windrush and racism, which are important to many in Tottenham and rightly so. He was also prepared to turn out on trade union protests and campaigning.
In June 2015 Jeremy Corbyn just got over the line as a candidate for the Labour leadership with 36 nominations. A number of MPs, including David Lammy, made it clear that while they did not fully agree with the Islington North MP, they felt it was important that there was a voice from the left on the ballot. This idea of Labour as a broad church of left and progressive views has since been abolished by Keir Starmer.
Jeremy Corbyn who had been a Haringey Councillor before he became an MP was popular in Tottenham, then as now, and Lammy could be found sharing platforms with him. The last time was at a Bernie Grant Memorial meeting in March 2020.
However once Starmer had been elected as leader David discovered that Corbyn was ‘anti-semitic’ something he had not mentioned before most likely because there was no basis for it.
Tottenham regularly has amongst the highest Labour majorities in the country and left candidates opposed David Lammy at most elections from 2000. He had after all supported the war in Iraq. The left vote in Tottenham is invariably decent- in 2024 Nandita Lal saved her deposit, while the Greens came second, leaving Lammy with a significantly reduced majority.
His period as Foreign Secretary and the Government’s position on Gaza has motivated considerable protest and opposition in the Constituency, something he has not felt able to address.
In short compared to the legacy of Bernie Grant, David Lammy has disappointed many and in recent times more than that.
Of course as the first black Deputy PM it won’t be long before the racist commentaries start in the Telegraph, Mail and GB News. These need to be robustly rebuffed while not avoiding the very considerable political issues that David’s recent political positions have raised.
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