Anita Singh Column: “I’m an Islington North resident – this is why Jeremy Corbyn won”

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1. **Part 1:**

   **From The Telegraph’s Anita Singh:**

   [Jeremy Corbyn’s win in Islington North](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/05/corbyn-beats-labour-re-elected-islington-north/) was not a foregone conclusion.

   Yes, he has been a popular local MP for 40 years. When he turns up to the summer fair at my children’s primary school, he’s the second most popular guest after Gunnersaurus, the Arsenal dinosaur mascot.

   But London is a Labour city and a vote for Mr Corbyn was a vote not for the Labour Party. There was every possibility that Labour could have retained the seat.

   Media dispatches from Islington North always feature the café by Finsbury Park station where the owner is so devoted to Mr Corbyn that cut-outs of his face adorn cardboard love hearts pinned to the walls. The people who love Mr Corbyn really love him.

   But the average resident doesn’t have that strength of feeling. In the network of streets where I live, clustered around the old Highbury ground, posters in front windows were pretty evenly [split between Mr Corbyn and Labour](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/28/labour-revolt-islington-party-executives-back-corbyn/).

   Not everyone is sufficiently plugged into internal Labour Party politics, news sites or social media to know that Mr Corbyn had been expelled from the party and was standing as an independent.

   I’m sure there will have been people who put a cross beside his name in the belief that they were still getting a Labour MP.

   But from my vantage point as a local resident, there were two reasons why Mr Corbyn triumphed.

   Firstly, his canvassers [put in the leg work](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/23/mudslinging-hiding-hedges-what-going-on-in-corbyn-islington/).

   Groups of them fanned out across the ward every day, knocking on doors or stopping passers-by to hand out flyers and engage them in conversation about their voting intentions. Young people in Vote Corbyn T-shirts were everywhere. On election morning, Vote Corbyn slogans with smiley faces were chalked on the pavements.

   I never met a Labour Party canvasser although a couple of flyers were pushed through the letterbox. The only person standing outside the church hall polling station on election day, ticking off names and addresses, was from Mr Corbyn’s camp.

   Perhaps Labour thought this part of the ward was a lost cause because it is Mr Corbyn’s heartland: he lives just up the road. But their absence in these past weeks was noted. If Labour wasn’t going to bother showing up to ask for votes, why should voters show up for Labour?

   **Column Link:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/05/im-islington-north-resident-why-jeremy-corbyn-won/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/05/im-islington-north-resident-why-jeremy-corbyn-won/)