Jeremy Corbyn has revealed how he was forced out of Labour with a Samaritans note.
After the local Labour Party was denied permission to hold a selection meeting for its parliamentary candidate, Corbyn wrote to the then party’s general secretary, David Evans, requesting to be involved in the selection process overseen by Labour’s London region officials.
But, according to Inside Croydon, the MP was reportedly told “you can’t be counted”.
Corbyn said: “So I wrote back and said under normal rules of natural justice, I’d like to appeal against this decision. And he wrote back immediately, like 10 minutes later, saying the rules of natural justice no longer apply in the Labour Party. There is no right of appeal, you have no right to hold public office, and I hereby draw your attention to the rules of the party on your behaviour.
“At that point, I decided to run as an independent, announced it and I was expelled by the Labour Party half an hour later in a letter which said at the end of it, if you’re upset about this, here’s the number for Samaritans.”
The MP added he was treated “very unfairly” in 2020 by the Labour national executive.
It comes after a powerful op-ed for the Guardian, where he wrote: “Labour has failed to deliver the change the British people deserved. Refusing to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Taking support away from disabled people. Providing political and military support to Israel as starving Palestinians are shot in the street. From the moment this government was elected, it has inflicted suffering and injustice at home and abroad.
“There is another definition of the past year in politics: up and down the country, communities have been organising for something different, something new, something better.”
Read that story in full here.