Jeremy Corbyn has said Keir Starmer should stop “dissing the past” and claimed he would only offer support to a Labour government when it “does something good”.
The former Labour leader, 75, was greeted by cheers and chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” from supporters as he left Islington town hall on Wednesday after handing in his nomination papers to officially stand as an independent candidate at the general election on July 4.
Speaking to reporters, Corbyn, who was barred from standing for Labour in Islington North by his successor, said: “Do you know what? We’re going to win this thing.”
Corbyn said he was “pretty sure” Starmer would be the next Prime Minister, and pledged: “When the new government does something good, yes, I’ll agree and support them – public ownership of Royal Mail, public ownership of our railway system… of our water.”
And he called out the Labour leader, who he told BBC London was “happy” to campaign based on the 2017 and 2019 manifestos.
“Something has changed and it’s not me and it’s not those manifestos,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any need for him to diss the past or diss his own involvement in it.”
Asked why Starmer was dissing the Corbyn era, he told reporters: “He seems to think that forgetting the past and pretending it never happened is somehow going to make you strong.
“You can’t just diss the past – you’ve got to understand why things happen.”
He also accused Labour of “trying to get rid of as many left candidates as they can”, citing his close ally Diane Abbott, who remains Labour’s candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington despite a selection battle and reports she had been barred as a candidate.
“I think it’s deplorable,” he said. “Diane has suffered more abuse than any other MP, probably as much as all MPs put together sometimes, yet she’s stoically gone through it all.”
Corbyn hopes to extend his over 40-year tenure as an MP after being banned from standing for Labour as part of Starmer’s efforts to “tear antisemitism out of our party by the roots”.
He was suspended in 2020 after he refused to fully accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission (ECHR)’s findings that the party broke equality law when he was in charge and said antisemitism had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”.
Labour has been contacted for comment.