Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn

Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn 12 September 2015 – 4 April 2020
Premier	David Cameron Theresa May Boris Johnson
Cabinet	Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn
Party	Labour
Election	2015
Appointed by	Elizabeth II
← Ed Miliband Keir Starmer →

The Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn began when Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the Labour Party in September 2015, following the resignation of Ed Miliband after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election. Disillusioned by a lack of a left-wing voice in the 2015 leadership contest, Corbyn stood on an anti-austerity platform. Of the candidates who stood, Corbyn received the fewest parliamentary nominations. Many who nominated him said they had done so not to support his candidacy, but to widen the debate by including a socialist voice. However, Corbyn soon became the frontrunner and was elected with a landslide of 59%.

This article is part of a series about Jeremy Corbyn
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Corbyn appointed John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor and promoted several female backbenchers, forming a Shadow Cabinet that for the first time had more women than men. Under Corbyn's leadership, Labour shifted to the left from the centre-ground. In November 2015, he voted against British military involvement in the Syrian civil war. He also opposed the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system and apologised for the Tony Blair ministry taking the UK into the Iraq War. In spite of his victory, Corbyn enjoyed little support from Labour MPs, although his support remained strong amongst Labour Party members. In 2016, Labour were widely criticised in the media for their apparent poor performance in local elections; despite this, they had won 34.1% of the PCC vote against the Conservatives’ 30%, they lost 18 councillors to the Conservatives’ loss of 48, Labour government control was retained in Wales, and Labour achieved a clean sweep of the mayoralties of London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Salford. Following the European Union membership referendum, in which Britain voted to leave the EU, party opponents accused Corbyn of running a lukewarm campaign for Remain; one major opponent, Angela Eagle, cited his lack of devotion to the Remain cause while simultaneously observing the energetic and itinerant means by which his campaign was conducted. Several resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and Corbyn lost a motion of no confidence by 197–40. Angela Eagle and Owen Smith launched a formal challenge, although Eagle later withdrew. Corbyn was re-elected with a marginally higher majority of 61%, the largest leadership election majority of any Labour leader in history.

Although Labour suffered poor results at the local elections in May 2017, at the snap 2017 general election the party secured 40% of the vote with the biggest increase in Labour vote share for 72 years, and forced the Conservatives to form a minority government, with Labour remaining in opposition. In the 2018 local elections, Labour increased its share of the vote. In the 2019 local elections, Labour's seat total dropped by 84. In the 2019 European Parliament election, Labour came third behind the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, Labour's vote share dropped to 32%, winning the lowest number of seats since 1935. The result led to Corbyn's announcement that he would stand down as Labour leader. Some reasons for the defeat included concerns about Corbyn's leadership, the party's "ambiguous" position on Brexit, and concerns that the commitments in the left-wing manifesto were "undeliverable".^[1][2] Corbyn said he would not lead Labour into the next election, triggering a leadership election in 2020 that was won by Keir Starmer, his Shadow Brexit Secretary.

During his tenure as leader, Corbyn came under criticism in relation to antisemitism within the Labour Party. Corbyn has condemned antisemitism^[3] and apologised for its presence within the party,^[4] while his leadership oversaw changes to strengthen party disciplinary procedures regarding hate speech and racism as recommended by the 2016 Chakrabarti Inquiry.^[5] An internal 2020 report and the subsequent 2022 Forde Report noted that Corbyn's team inherited a dysfunctional disciplinary system which eventually improved under General Secretary Jennie Formby, and stated that antisemitism was used as a factional weapon by both opponents and supporters of Corbyn within the party. A 2020 Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry into the matter found the party under his leadership was responsible for unlawful acts of discrimination and harassment.^[6][7] After asserting that the scale of antisemitism within the party had been overstated for political reasons, Corbyn was suspended from Labour Party membership in October 2020. The membership suspension was lifted a month later after a formal disciplinary warning, but the Labour leadership declined to restore the whip, denying readmission to the parliamentary party.

In 2022, Al Jazeera alleged, using an analysis of leaked documents^[8] from the Labour Party, that senior Labour officials attempted to undermine support for Corbyn and, on some occasions, to silence debate about Israel's treatment of Palestinians.^[9] In March 2023, Labour's National Executive Committee resolved not to endorse Corbyn as a potential candidate in the next general election.^[10][11] In May 2024, shortly after that election had been called, Corbyn announced that he would stand as an independent parliamentary candidate for Islington North.^[12] On the same day, he was expelled from the Labour Party.^[13]