‘An hour of abuse’: Jeremy Corbyn on Labour coups, and whether he feels sorry for Starmer | Labour party leadership

“TOyes I feel [sorry for him]Jeremy Corbyn said, with some hesitation: “It must be devastating on a personal level. It’s a terrible feeling. Suddenly you realize that this person doesn’t trust you at all and doesn’t actually wish you well, and suddenly you realize all the trust that was there has disappeared.”

Few people in politics have the experience of suffering a Labor Party-style coup; This is the British equivalent of being dragged out of your office and pressed against the wall. Resignation letters from so-called political friends and condemnatory statements on social media have been thrown around for maximum effect in order to push the target, which was once greeted with standing ovations and applause, by its tail.

Keir Starmer experienced this this week. Tony Blair had a very moderate version of this in 2006, and Boris Johnson’s ouster in 2022 was a proper all-party effort. But the real point in Labor history is to look at Corbyn, who was leader from 2015 to 2020.

Corbyn’s ordeal began on the evening of Saturday 25 June 2016, just days after the EU referendum. The Observer reported online that the Labor leader’s shadow foreign secretary was busy planning the mass sacking of the party’s top brass. “This came to my attention quite quickly,” Corbyn said. “I immediately called Hilary [Benn] He failed to reach her throughout the evening and finally spoke to her at one o’clock in the morning. I said is this story in the Observer true?

Benn confirmed that it was. “So I said, that makes your position absolutely untenable, that’s the end of it,” Corbyn said. “He said: ‘So you’re kicking me out?’ I said ‘Yes’. That was it and then I called Seumas [Milne, Corbyn’s press secretary] make a statement immediately. And that was the beginning of it.”

Throughout Sunday Corbyn received calls and letters from party colleagues informing him that they were leaving his shadow team. There were an unprecedented 21 resignations. “I was sort of scolding them,” Corbyn said with a dry laugh. “Some were blunt and rude, some were nice. I went to the allocation in the afternoon. I received a few resignations in the distribution. I wrote them down and took notes at home: So I could call them potato rebels, beetroot rebels. It was a very, very busy period.”

Corbyn recalled that the Labor Party meeting in parliament on Monday was “very harsh, really appalling. It was basically an hour of abuse at me”. “’You’ve got to get out of the way, you brought all this on to us, you brought all this on yourself.’ “It was all personal and very, very abusive, which I don’t really care about because that sort of thing doesn’t really worry me, but other people were very disturbed by it.”

The motion of no confidence was accepted by 172 votes to 40. He recalled Corbyn taking the piece of paper with the result on it, folding it and putting it in his drawer. He wouldn’t move. But Corbyn admitted it was difficult not to take such a show of rejection personally. “This [overwhelming]. You think, ‘Wow, this is so important.’ Various friends called. Len [McCluskey, the then leader of the Unite union] For example, he said: ‘This is a blow against you and all of us. There’s only one way to go, and that’s to fight it.’ And I said, ‘I’m not resigning.’ “I was elected by a clear majority and it was up to the members to decide.”

During the latest storm, Starmer described his wife Victoria as his “rock”. Corbyn also said his wife, Laura Alvarez, was a vital stabilizing influence. “He’s Mexican and he thinks Britain is more corrupt than Mexico; in Mexico it’s more obvious,” Corbyn said. “He was really angry about everything that was going on, he was really hurt. Absolute full support to my sons and the whole family. My ex-husband is from Chile and he said: ‘This is a coup, stop them. We’ve seen coups before.'”

Corbyn, who later beat rival Owen Smith by a 61.8% to 38.2% margin in membership, said he had been helped by mass demonstrations of support during the crisis. Following Labour’s parliamentary meeting, thousands of people gathered outside the gates of Westminster palace to applaud him.

Starmer was seen making a speech on Monday that he hopes will rally the party to his side. Instead, he mobilized his newfound opponents in the party, who claimed this was further evidence of his lack of political touch and courage. The Prime Minister has maintained a low profile since then.

After Labor banned Starmer from representing his party in the 2024 general election, Corbyn, who is today Your Party’s parliamentary leader, said he may have been advised to go into hiding. But Corbyn suggested it would be better for Starmer to present himself and make his case. “There is a temptation [to go into the bunker] because you are always full of advisors and sometimes the advice is conflicting,” he said.

“It’s almost always well-intentioned, but it can be quite frustrating, and sometimes you have to do things instinctively rather than calculating them to the end. If you have an instinct to do something, do it. You might get in trouble later, but at least you’ve been honest with yourself.”

Runners and cyclists look clear in a possible leadership election. Wes Streeting has resigned as health secretary, saying Starmer will not lead the party at the next general election. Andy Burnham has found a parliamentary seat where he plans to run in a by-election ahead of his leadership bid. Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told the world at the time that she had been cleared of wrongdoing regarding tax underpayment. “I wouldn’t vote for either of them,” Corbyn said.

Corbyn said Rayner “is on the union right of the party and so I think he would tend to gravitate towards that”. “I’m not sure if he’ll get the numbers to be nominated,” he added, referring to the fact that each candidate must have the support of 80 Labor MPs. “He’s effective at public speaking, but I think he has some issues with the policies he’s going to put forward.”

Corbyn said Burnham had a chance but her by-election victory in Makerfield, Manchester, was “unacceptable”. Corbyn, as with Rayner, said his support for more defense spending may not be compatible with members. “We need to put money into welfare, education and housing, not war,” he said. “And the problem with Streeting is that [giving contracts to] Palantir and the privatization of the NHS.”

Come to think of it, Corbyn actually said he would vote. “Yes, I would always vote. I would put myself through a series of tests on the economy, anti-racism, peace and war, and the environment. To stop the retreat from environmental policies, to stop the drift away from public ownership, and to stop the move away from peace policies globally; we can do better than financing war and subsidizing the arms industry.”

“But yes,” he added, reflecting on events a decade ago, “you can never completely separate the personal from the political, even though most of us would like to.”