For supposedly one of the biggest losers in Labour’s history, Jeremy Corbyn has certainly won a lot of elections. Two leadership contests by huge margins, and 10 consecutive victories in his parliamentary constituency, Islington North. Since first being elected there 41 years ago, he has increased his majority from a modest 5,607 to a formidable 26,188.

So his announcement that he is running as an independent in the general election, a plan that he has hinted at for months, has a degree of confidence behind it. In the bustling, congested streets of his traditionally left-leaning constituency, seemingly everyone knows “Jeremy”, and the famously conscientious MP knows them. “He may have the highest constituency name recognition of any MP in the country,” a local Labour councillor told me.

Corbyn’s campaign is also likely to draw in activists from all over Britain: people who joined Labour for the duration of his deeply flawed but compelling leadership, people who share his position on Gaza, and people who simply don’t like Keir Starmer and the much more cautious and centrist party he has created. As when Ken Livingstone successfully stood as an independent for the London mayoralty in 2000 – having, like Corbyn, been prevented from standing as a Labour candidate – a political........

© The Guardian