Why the odds are stacked against Jeremy Corbyn, the outsider

If the former Labour leader runs against the party he has served for a lifetime, the electoral history of defecting MPs is not in his favour

Jeremy Corbyn’s political career has come full circle. He first entered parliament by defeating his predecessor as Islington North MP, Michael O’Halloran, who had split with the Labour party and stood against it as an independent in 1983. Four decades later, Corbyn is now the Islington North MP rumoured to be plotting a run against his former party.

Even by the standards of our turbulent era, the last eight years have been an extraordinary rollercoaster ride for Islington North’s longest- serving representative. A triumphant outsider in the 2015 leadership contest, who nearly beat the odds again in the 2017 election, he resigned after electoral disaster in 2019, and was then ejected from his party by his successor, Keir Starmer. With his exile now officially confirmed, Corbyn must decide if he is willing to run for office against the party he has served for a lifetime.