Will Jeremy Corbyn stay on as Labour leader if the party loses the General Election?

Hatty Collier10 May 2017
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Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that he will not quit as Labour leader if his party is beaten in the General Election has renewed speculation about what could happen after June 8.

Labour is bracing itself for a bruising defeat as it trails an average 20 points behind Theresa May’s Conservative’s in most poll trackers.

But Mr Corbyn is thought to be under pressure from left-wingers to carry on, regardless of the result, as they are desperate not to lose control of the party.

During last year’s leadership contest, shadow chancellor John McDonnell – one of Mr Corbyn’s closest allies – signalled they would both have to stand down if the party lost a general election.

He told the BBC: "That would be inevitable, wouldn't it? Every Labour leader who loses an election usually goes."

But Mr Corbyn said in an interview with Buzzfeed News published on Tuesday: “I was elected leader of this party and I’ll stay leader of this party.”

The history of other leaders standing down

Former Labour leaders Michael Foot, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband all stood down after their first defeat.

Neil Kinnock saw out two losses before resigning in 1992. Mr Kinnock was the last leader of the opposition to remain in the job following a General Election defeat.

In 1987, he remained the party’s leader after losing to Margaret Thatcher but gaining 26 seats extra seats for Labour.

But this time round, the party is expected to win fewer seats than it had after the 2015 poll.

The rules about Labour leadership contests

The parliamentary Labour party does not have a formal process if it wishes to oust its leader. In 2016, after 60 frontbenchers called on Mr Corbyn to resign and a majority of his MPs had voted no confidence in him, he stayed on and won his second leadership contest in which he was challenged by Owen Smith.

Labour's National Executive Committee had decided Mr Corbyn would automatically make the leadership ballot for the second contest in a blow to those MPs who were desperate to oust him.

Critics had argued that he should have to obtain the support of at least 51 MPs and MEPs (15 per cent of the 229 Labour MPs and 20 MEPs at the time) in order to qualify for the race.

Labour’s rules stipulate that anyone who wishes to challenge a sitting leader needs the backing of 20 per cent of Labour MPs and MEPs.

If there is no sitting leader, a candidate needs just 15 per cent of MPs and MEPs.

At this year’s conference, the party will vote on a reform to the leadership selection process that would make reduce the required proportion of support from MPs and MEPs from 15 per cent to 5 per cent of the party.

Mr Corbyn gives the thumbs up to supporters after being announced as the leader of the Labour Party on the eve of the party's annual conference on September 24, 2016
Getty Images

Does the Labour membership support Jeremy Corbyn?

In the last Labour leadership contest, Mr Corbyn was re-elected with a victory of 61.8 per cent of the vote over his challenger Owen Smith.

It was his second huge win in little more than 12 months following an influx of grassroots supporters.

His tally of 313,209 votes was more than 60,000 higher than the 251,417 (59.5 per cent) he secured in his first leadership contest in 2015.

But a recent poll conducted before the General Election was announced, showed a fall in Mr Corbyn’s popularity.

Polling commissioned by Election Data’s Ian Warren and carried out by YouGov showed a drop in the Labour leader’s approval rating among members over 12 months.

In February 2016, his net approval rating was 55 per cent. A year later it was 17 per cent.

Jeremy Corbyn faces Theresa May in the last PMQs before Parliament was dissolved
Sky News

Will Jeremy Corbyn stand down?

Mr Corbyn has already survived a Labour leadership challenge when many people believed he would not.

But it would be quite extraordinary if he held onto the leadership should Mrs May secure a huge majority on June 8.

If Labour secures the same percentage of the vote (30.5 per cent) as it did in 2015 under former leader Ed Miliband, it is thought Mr Corbyn could use this to argue his case to stay.

Professor Tim Bale, of Queen Mary University’s politics department, told the Standard Mr Corbyn’s vow to remain as leader after a defeat was not surprising.

He said: “We wouldn’t expect a leader to say anything else. Leaders never talk about losing and what will happen if or when they lose.

“It’s possible to conceive Jeremy Corbyn thinking that he can and should stay on as he has an idea of democracy and the power of the leader depending on the membership rather than the voters.

“It is consistent with his ideology but whether he would actually want to carry on if and when that defeat comes and if it is really, really big, he might actually think it’s time to go.

“What might stop him is the people around him wanting him to stay on in order for them to get a successor in a Corbyn mould. He might feel that getting a rule change at the party conference is something they need to do and he needs to stay on in order for them to achieve that.”

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