Islington North Odds: Jeremy Corbyn odds-on to retain seat

The 2024 General Election has been called and there will be 650 individual contests across the country to decide the make-up of the next parliament.

Here at Betfred Insights we will take you inside some of these markets and we start today with looking at the Islington North Odds...

Can it be just five years ago that Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party and some thought was on course to potentially be the next Prime Minister?

Now he is set to run in his constituency as an Independent in what might be one of the most fascinating seats of the 2024 General Election. Let’s see what the Islington North Odds say about his chances of retaining the seat.

Jeremy Corbyn opens as the 2/5 (71%) betting favourite with Betfred to retain his seat in the House of Commons as an Independent MP. The former Labour Leader, who was suspended from the party in 2020 before later being reinstated, has been a sitting as an Independent ever since, as Sir Keir Starmer did not reinstate the whip in the House of Commons.

The decision by the 75-year-old to stand against his former party however does automatically lead to his expulsion from the party and brings an end to this chapter of the saga. With a seat in the House of Commons to battle for however, this book still has plenty of words to be written.

This is set to be one of the ugliest contests across the land, as the battle lines are drawn pretty much between Labour members about who they wish to vote for.

Do they vote for the man who has represented them continuously since 1983, a candidate who hasn’t received less than 50% of the vote since 1987 or do they place their ballots for a relative unknown, who is wearing the rosette of the party who have represented the people of Islington North since 1937?

Corbyn’s chances are enhanced by the decision of the national party to install Praful Nargrund as the Labour candidate. The Barnsbury ward councillor has been pretty much incognito in the early days of the campaign and has set his own website to private, so constituents can’t even read up about him or his views on anything. This is quite frankly bizarre behaviour and has really left the door wide open for the former leader of the Labour Party to keep hold of his seat.

Using the Web Archive, I’ve been able to have a gander at his pretty garish and poorly designed website and it seems that his primary motivation is for a skills revolution. I’m not surprised he’s set the website to private as it gets redesigned and his proper manifesto is put together because anyone reading what is there now, would not think this person was a serious candidate.

Labour could have beaten Jeremy Corbyn (and could well still do) but the odds of 2/5 for the incumbent and 7/4 for the Labour candidate seem pretty fair to me.

One candidate certainly has his flaws but has been a tireless campaigner and champion for the people of his constituency for as long as I’ve been born (I’m a 1983 kid) and the other has been parachuted in and seems at this point to just be a name on a piece of paper.

We’ll see plenty of these type of candidates winning in the 2024 General Election but up against such a powerful and well-known candidate, I just don’t see it happening here. This one was a toss-up but the way Labour have fumbled the opening to this campaign, it has given Jeremy Corbyn a significant advantage.

The Lib Dems have an outside chance of splitting the difference should the battle between Labour and Jeremy Corbyn get really nasty but I wouldn't touch that bet, even at the 33/1 odds offered. This should be a two-horse race with the Lib Dems in third and the rest looking at a very poor result.

We’ll cover this ongoing story from now through to General Election day itself from our team here at Betfred Insights. Keep checking out our coverage from the Next Prime Minister markets through to key individual constituencies over the coming weeks as we follow the twists and turns from a betting perspective for the 2024 General Election in our Politics Betting Tips section.