Jeremy Corbyn said today he will not fight Diane Abbott for her seat when their constituencies are carved up in major boundary changes.
The frontbench colleagues and former lovers have pledged to talk through the looming shake-up in Islington and Hackney — the heartland of Corbyn’s Labour regime.
The party’s leader told the Standard: “I don’t want to go against Diane and she doesn’t want to go against me. We will discuss it, don’t worry about it.
"Rest assured I’ll be around and rest assured Diane will be around as well.”
The pair face an uncertain future under the Boundary Commission’s current proposals as Mr Corbyn’s Islington North constituency and Diane Abbott’s Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat would be scrapped before the 2020 general election.
Both would have a claim to new constituency, Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington, but Mr Corbyn wants to ensure he and his shadow home secretary avoid a turf war.
Instead, Labour has submitted alternative proposals to the commission that would enable both Left-wingers to keep seats in roughly the same part of London.
Mr Corbyn said: “I will be available to contest a constituency based on where I already represent. It will be bigger, quite a big proportion actually.”
He and Ms Abbott have known each other since the Seventies when he was a Haringey councillor and she was a race relations officer for the National Council of Civil Liberties.
They had a brief relationship after Mr Corbyn’s first marriage ended and in the Eighties ended up in adjoining constituencies.
The boundary changes will see the size of the House of Commons fall from 650 to 600 MPs.
A public consultation is under way and final proposals will not be made until 2018.
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The Labour leader said that under the Boundary Commission’s current plan “about 50 to 60 per cent of my constituency goes into the new Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington constituency — about 40 to 50 per cent of hers goes into it.”
Asked if he would go against Ms Abbott for the seat, he said: “No.”
The boundary changes may also result in the loss of Labour MP Meg Hillier’s Hackney South and Shoreditch seat.
Mr Corbyn said: “We don’t know two things — firstly what the commission will finally come up with and secondly if it will happen at all.
"I’ve been the MP for the same constituency for 33 years and there have been about four boundary reviews in that period and nothing happened. These things come around, they’re sent to try us.
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