Corbyn’s success deserves acclaim
Western Daily Press, 12 July 2024, p. 16
The victory of Independent candidate Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North in the recent General Election was an extraordinary achievement almost unprecedented in British electoral history.
It has been predictably sidelined or ignored by the Corbyn-hating mainstream media, including the BBC, because it flagrantly contradicts their chosen narrative.
It is highly instructive to compare the respective results of Corbyn and our new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, whose constituency, Holborn and St Pancras, is just next door to Corbyn’s, and is comparable in many ways to Islington North.
In the 2019 General Election, Corbyn won 34,603 votes, or 64.35% of the popular vote, while Starmer won 36,641 votes, or 64.5% of the vote. The comparable figures for July 2024 are Corbyn 24,120 votes (or 49.2%) and Starmer 18,884 votes (or 48.9% – vote share down by 17.4%).
Put differently, the number of votes Corbyn received in 2024 was 30.3% lower in 2024 compared with 2019 (without the help of the Labour Party machine), while Starmer’s was a whopping 48.5% lower (with the help of the Labour Party machine behind him).
From these tell-tale figures it will be plain as any pikestaff which of these political leaders is the more popular amongst the electorate that really knows them – their local constituents. Anyone familiar with our electoral system will know that Independent candidates with no party machine bankrolling them, and who possess none of the historical canvassing records held by the main politcal parties, have virtually no chance of winning against the power of the party-political machine. Yet starting from scratch with only volunteers to help him, Corbyn won a famous victory that has virtually no parallel in British electoral history.
I had the pleasure and good fortune to spend seven full days campaigning for Corbyn, along with many hundeds of other volunteers from across the UK, and even Europe. It was one of the most uplifting and moving experiences of my 70 years in this lifetime.
Dr Richard House
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Other Letters to the Press
- Disturbing threat to the future of our farms
- The banks should pay their fair share
- Letter: Lessons of populism need to be heeded
- A semblance of national sovereignty
- Lessons of populism need to be heeded
- Populism terrifies globalist politicians
- Political system is utterly bankrupt
- Credit where it is due - Stroud MP Dr Simon Opher
- Political parties have been irresponsible
- Causes of riots
- Starmer’s abject failure of leadership
- Tired of Punch & Judy politics in the UK
- Corbyn’s victory was extraordinary
- Poppycock
- Political opinions are not always far apart
- Corbyn’s success deserves acclaim
- Electoral reform is even more overdue
- Farage on the Ukraine war
- VAT on private school fees takes away choice
- Don’t vote for the self-serving elites
- Communities should have more control
- Time to reject main political parties
- We can break two-party cycle
- Independents day might be coming
- Current system is strangling democracy
- Tired old politics of abuse now irrelevant
- Anti-semitism
- Starmer’s Labour is Campbell on steroids
- Independent voices starting to be heard
- Elphicke defection is scarcely believable
- Voters show disdain for party-political system
- The Independents are on the march!