Labour: Difficult to see Jeremy Corbyn return after Nato remarks – Starmer

Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was “very difficult to imagine” how his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn could rejoin the party in the House of Commons after his comments on NATO.

Mr Corbyn was suspended from Labor in 2020 over his response to a report of anti-Semitism within his ranks.

But while he was reinstated as a Labor member, Sir Keir refused to let him return to the party’s backbenches.

Last week, the former leader proposed dissolving NATO to “bring peace.”

Mr Corbyn – a long-time critic of the transatlantic military alliance – said while he accepts the group will not be scrapped immediately, people should re-examine it after the conflict in Ukraine ends.

He told Times Radio: “Do military alliances bring peace? Or are they actually encouraging each other and creating a greater danger?

“I don’t blame NATO for Russia invading Ukraine. What I am saying is to look at the matter historically and look at the process that could happen at the end of the Ukraine war.”

Mr Corbyn also described the decision to strip him of the Labor whip as a “completely unjustified decision”.

Asked whether his predecessor could be reinstated in the parliamentary group following his comments, Sir Keir told BBC Sunday Morning: “It is very difficult to see how this situation can now be resolved.”

He added: “[Mr Corbyn] lost the stick for his reaction to the Equality and Human Rights Commission in relation to anti-Semitism, but I made it very clear, the first thing I said as party leader was that I will uproot anti-Semitism in our party.

“I have also made it clear that our position in the Labor Party is not to accept the false equation between Russian aggression and NATO’s actions.”

The current Labor leader insisted that the party’s stance under both his leadership and Mr Corbyn’s was pro-Nato and that will not change.

Mr Corbyn remains in the House of Commons, sitting as the independent MP for Islington North.