It takes time to walk anywhere with Jeremy Corbyn. As we set off on the campaign trail one afternoon in Islington North – where he is standing as an independent against Labour, the party he once led – he was stopped immediately outside Finsbury Park Mosque by a group of men who shook his hand and asked for selfies. He knocked on a door off Seven Sisters Road and disappeared inside for several minutes before emerging to take a photo with the family in the front garden. Their neighbour beckoned him over with a question about the NHS. Back on the street, some passers-by solicited his predictions about the Premier League. More selfies. A large group of 20-somethings outside a pub across the road raised their pints to him. He shouted back, “Register to vote!” After ten paces he stopped again to chat to a council worker clearing rubbish from the gutters. When we eventually returned to base camp, who was waiting to greet him but the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, fresh off the plane from Athens, brandishing a sign that said “Vote Corbyn”.
This reception reflects Corbyn’s peculiar political status, as an MP who has been rooted in his constituency for more than 40 years, yet has also become a major national figure – more famous than Keir Starmer and Liz Truss, according to the latest polls – and a symbol of the left-populist movement that rose and receded in the West over the past decade. The memory of this insurgency remains potent despite its electoral wipeout in 2019. Keir Starmer, on the cusp of Downing Street, wants nothing more than to erase that unruly legacy.
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