Jeremy Corbyn is on course for a famous victory in north London. For although cast out of the Labour Party, which he joined in 1965 and led from 2015-20, Corbyn is still loved in Islington North, the constituency he has represented for 41 years, which in this election he is fighting as an Independent.
Hussein Jaber, originally from Lebanon and proprietor for the last 23 years of the Gadz Café (pictured above) in Finsbury Park, serves a dish called the Jeremy Special, consisting of falafel, khyar bi laban (cucumber yoghurt), olives, hummus, baba ghanoush, couscous, Lebanese garlic sauce, olive oil and oregano.
He displays several Corbyn posters in his window, and a banner calling for the Labour whip to be restored, and said: “We never give up, and we fight, he can win, he should win, the people are worried because the people need him.
“It’s very sad if Jeremy is finished. The job for him is his life. The job for him is not to make money. The job is to help people. He helps you. He feels very happy when he finds someone to help. This is his life.
“So if he stops helping people, blood comes inside him” – Jaber made a slicing movement across his own chest to show what he meant – “I’m worried about Jeremy because he wants to work until the last day of his life.
“He doesn’t say, ‘I am too old [Corbyn is 75], I want to retire, go on holiday, leave the people here to suffer.’
“If he wins, he’ll be the most happy man in the world, he’ll have another four years to help people.
“I think he will win. We’ll see what’s going to happen. Like I said, Jeremy is like under treatment now, he’s a patient under treatment, so we can save his life. If you stop him to work you kill him, he feels himself a dead man.”
Oussama Ouaday, a customer at the Gadz, is originally from Algeria, a French citizen who has lived here for the last 12 years and has the permanent right to remain, which he will certainly do, for he has a six-year-old daughter who is a British citizen.
He works as a kitchen manager and said of Corbyn: “No doubt he’s going to win, obviously. People here in North Islington they like him, everybody likes him. We see him every day and we talk to him. He comes to the mosque often, helps the community.
“I like the way he’s not racist, he supports diversity, equality as well. When I say equality, I mean the council housing and things like that, he helps a lot of people.
“He’s a very humble guy as well. And the big thing people like, he stands for Palestine as well. It’s very important. Not a lot of people know Jeremy Corbyn was a big supporter for Palestine years ago.
“And that’s why they made the accusation of anti-semitism. If you want my opinion it was just a plan from the Zionist lobby to put him down from the Labour Party.”
Does Ouaday think Corbyn is anti-semitic? “No, no, not at all,” he replied, “he’s not anti-semitic.
“As for me, I like the Jewish community, I admire them, especially in Stamford Hill [a short way to the east], I admire how they help each other, they’re strong, they’re peaceful.
“When I was first in this country I worked for a shop run by Jewish people, they were very nice to me, they helped me.”
At The Eaglet pub in Seven Sisters Road, decorated with Arsenal shirts (the club is within the constituency, and supported by Corbyn), a retired chippy (carpenter) said:
“I’m voting for him, yeah. He’s been here about 40 years. I’ll definitely be supporting him, not the other head case. Nah, nah, he’s too young, 30 or 40, he’s not experienced.”
This was the only reference made to the official Labour candidate, Praful Nargund, 33, who was imposed by the National Executive Committee on an infuriated local Labour Party, and has yet to make an impact.
Sir Keir Starmer’s constituency, Holburn and St Pancras, lies immediately to the west of Islington, but the present Labour leader has made few converts in Corbyn’s heartland.
The chippy said: “Keir Starmer’s too soft. He’s more for intellectual people like yourself. You’ve had a good education, I can tell.”
Another carpenter, born in the Irish Republic, said of Corbyn: “I wouldn’t have a clue about it. I’ve never voted in my life. A couple of years ago I was at the allotments in East Finchley, and we met Corbyn coming in and out.
“A nice man to talk to, a gentleman. He’s good mates with a woman I know there, Dublin Mary we call her, she’s a neighbour of his on the allotments.
“I am registered, I’ll give him a vote, definitely. I’ve heard good stories about him. He’s a very good man for the Irish community over the years.”
A third Irishman said: “I believe he was the man who helped my Dad back in the Nineties get the place we’re living in now.”
A woman said: “He did write a letter to the police about the drug addicts in our street, and that was only last year, and my friend and I went to see him, and they actually closed the drug dealer’s house down.”
In Le Rif Moroccan Café and Restaurant in Seven Sisters Road, where one can refresh oneself with a pot of delicious mint tea and a sweetmeat covered in nuts, Said Bouchane, the former owner, who was helping out, said of Corbyn:
“I think he’s a wonderful man. He’s a very good listener. He’s been around for a while, so he knows what’s good for the people. He used to go and just stand outside, listen to what people have to say, which makes a difference when a politician does that.”
Binyam Mahari, a 69-year-old pensioner who came to Britain from Eritrea and worked for 33 years in factories, was sitting outside Asmarino, an Eritrean café, watching the world go by, and said: “Yes, I’ve met Corbyn. A very nice man. I voted for him. He’s going to win.”
Inside Asmarino, the waitress said, astoundingly, that she had not heard of Corbyn. But it turned out that she lives in Kilburn and is only doing a summer job in Finsbury Park.
Islington North is less than three square miles in size, the smallest constituency in the country, and Corbyn can reach any part of it within 20 minutes on his bike. Vox pub, which has existed intermittently since the 1992 general election, has never been to a seat where such a high proportion of people speak with such deep affection of their MP.
Corbyn’s majority in 2019 was 26,188 votes, with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives a distant second and third.
So the contest in 2024 is between Corbyn and his successor as the official Labour candidate. Islington North will have the chance on 4th July to declare its independence from the Labour machine now gripped so tightly by Starmer’s minions, and I shall be astonished if it fails to take it.
The post Vox pub: Corbyn heads for victory over Starmer in Islington appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Andrew Gimson
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