He’s only gone and done it.
The allotment-loving, jam-making, peace-seeking, award-winning, greatest bearded vegan in political history, Jeremy Corbyn, has delivered the goods once more.
Peter Mandelson, Neil Kinnock, Margaret Hodge: your boy Praful took a hell of a beating.
Context: The Labour Party has the money, the machine, and of course, the mainstream media. Labour has held Islington North since 1937 – a staggering 87 years.
Jeremy Corbyn has just made history, my friends.
Corbyn: a long night
I’ve been sat here for hours, patiently waiting for the count in Islington North to be completed, and thank fucking god Jeremy won because I don’t fancy waking up in the morning with that awful 2019 feeling.
At first we heard the declaration would be at 1.30am, then it was 2am. To be honest I would’ve happily waited until 3am next Friday morning for the same result.
Even up until Wednesday night, the bookies had Praful Nargund as the odds on favourite to win the seat for the Labour Party, but they forget, Jeremy Corbyn was once a massive 200/1 to lead the Labour Party.
On Wednesday evening, which now seems a lifetime ago, YouGov had Labour and Nargund at 43% and Jeremy Corbyn at 38%.
This is what Jeremy Corbyn does. He defies the odds time and time again, despite unenviably facing the wrath of the British establishment, and despite the vexatious and utterly vicious smears levelled at Mr Corbyn and his family, this is what Jeremy Corbyn does.
Pleased? No. Utterly fucking ecstatic Jeremy Corbyn has won the seat of Islington North for an unprecedented ELEVENTH time? You bet I am.
A victory for all of us
This was a victory for Jeremy, Laura, his children and grandchild.
This was a victory for a focused, hard-working team — from across the left — and a brilliantly-orchestrated campaign, both on the ground in the constituency and online.
This was a victory for the politics of hope. Jeremy Corbyn has spent six decades fighting for peace, justice and equality.
We used to believe the Labour Party was the natural vehicle for societal change, now the S*n-backed Labour Party is a greater obstacle to socialism than the utterly devastated, barely functioning Conservative Party.
If the early results continue in the same direction, and the exit poll is anywhere near correct, this is the end of one Conservative Party and the beginning of another. It’s not like the new spivs on the block even bother hiding their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, or care if anyone correctly identifies Starmer’s guardians of the elite as conservatives – with a small “c”.
There’s so many other words beginning with “c” that we could apply to the incoming government, but I will leave that to your imagination because tonight belongs to the new Collective-backed independent member of parliament for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn.
It might well be well past 3am, but a Corbyn victory has just hit me like six cans of Red Bull and a month’s worth of Prozac.
Labour had it all – but it wasn’t real or enough
Labour had the resources, we had a plan. Labour had the political heavyweights, we had thousands of people flooding the streets of Islington. Not because it was their job — no payments are received — but because they also wanted this moment that I’m having now, some two hours and ninety two miles away from the scenes of jubilation currently underway in Islington town hall.
I’ll level with you. I’m one of Jeremy’s biggest supporters. Both the S*n and The Mail ‘doorstepped’ me for the crime of being a left-wing woman that gives zero fucks for what people think about my backing for Jeremy and his values.
The nearest I got to payment was rich tea biscuits and a coffee in Jeremy’s original office (the one where the anti-Black racist Starmer took the knee in solidarity against anti-Black racism), and if you was to force me to go on Mastermind my specialist subject would be the Corbyn years, 2015 – 2019.
But even I had a few worries over the past six weeks.
I knew Tory voters were backing privateer Praful in an attempt to defeat Jeremy, and I think most people were aware of the difficulties of attempting to inform the masses that Jeremy was no longer a Labour candidate.
It’s easy for us to forget, social media isn’t an accurate microcosm of British politics. If the election was contested on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, Jeremy would be in his seventh year as prime minister, Keir Starmer would’ve been a toolmaker’s apprentice, and Boris Johnson would still be a lying sack of shit.
One brilliant victory
It’s been an incredibly long night, and bedtime isn’t far away, and whatever Labour majority I wake up to in an hour or so will mean so very little to me, because this Corbyn victory is the beginning of something very special.
The faces of one Conservative politician after another, looking like they’ve lost a grand and found a quid, is enough to warm the coldest of hearts and invigorate the most tired of eyes.
But none of this compares to just this one brilliant victory in Islington North for Jeremy Corbyn.
I couldn’t be any prouder of Jeremy and the brilliant team behind him. Tonight, we have created our own little piece of history and Jeremy Corbyn is the new independent member of parliament for Islington North.
And best of all? It wasn’t even close.
Featured image via Rachael Swindon
