Labour: Difficult to see Jeremy Corbyn return after Nato remarks - Starmer
- Published
Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from Labour's parliamentary party in 2020
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said it is "very difficult to see" how his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, could re-join the party in the Commons after his comments about Nato.
Mr Corbyn was suspended from Labour in 2020 over his response to a report into anti-Semitism in its ranks.
But while he was reinstated as a Labour member, Sir Keir refused to let him return to the party's backbenches.
Last week, the former leader suggested Nato be disbanded to "bring peace".
Mr Corbyn - a long-standing critic of the transatlantic military alliance - said while he accepted the group was not going to be scrapped immediately, people should re-examine it after the conflict in Ukraine ends.
He told Times Radio: "Do military alliances bring peace? Or do they actually encourage each other and build up to a greater danger?
"I don't blame Nato for the fact that Russia has invaded Ukraine. What I say is look at the thing historically, and look at the process that could happen at the end of the Ukraine war."
Mr Corbyn also described the choice to remove the Labour whip from him as a "totally unjustified decision".
Asked whether his predecessor could be readmitted to the parliamentary party after his comments, Sir Keir told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: "It is very difficult to see how that situation can now be resolved."
He added: "[Mr Corbyn] lost the whip because of his response to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in relation to anti-Semitism, but I made it very clear, the first thing I said as party leader was that I was going to tear out anti-Semitism by its roots in our party.
"I've also made it clear that our position in the Labour Party is not to accept the false equivalence between Russian aggression and the acts of Nato."
The current Labour leader insisted the party's stance under both his leadership and Mr Corbyn's was pro-Nato and that was not going to change.
Mr Corbyn remains in the Commons, sitting as an independent MP for Islington North.