DOZENS of trade unionists have gathered in London to celebrate former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s appointment as honorary president of Islington Trade Union Council in recognition of his lifelong support for workers in struggle.

Attendees at Islington Town Hall on Wednesday night spoke about their personal experiences with the Islington North MP on picket lines supporting industrial action in his borough and while canvassing – and how his former role as leader of the Labour Party inspired hope.

Speakers also urged him to stand again as an MP for the constituency, though Labour has blocked him from standing for the party.

Islington North CLP chairwoman Alison McGarry said Mr Corbyn had made a difference in the party while Lord John Hendy KC called him the “greatest leader Labour ever had.”

Mr Corbyn said he was “very proud” to receive the title of honorary president.

He said that while the function of trade unions was to fight for better wages and conditions for workers, amid a mental health crisis exacerbated by poverty, it was also about “giving confidence to [all] members that the union is there for them” by supporting their struggles in housing, education and individual work issues.

The Peace and Justice Project founder raised previous acts of union defiance such as the general strike threat that freed the Pentonville Five, adding: “And if this government brings in and enforces its minimum service agreements, we’ve got to be prepared to do exactly the same thing again to stop them.”

“This trades council has a wonderful and proud record of standing up against racism in any form within our society,” he said.

“We have got to be prepared and open to say we are in solidarity with refugees and with asylum-seekers and [call] for an international strategy which is one of peace and justice.”

Mr Corbyn said the left sometimes feels “disempowered because we haven’t won everything,” or “because we don’t hear everybody talking up saying I want to be a socialist.”

But he highlighted how most people support public ownership of services.

“You can’t do this in a grotesquely unequal society where the billionaires’ [wealth is] growing by the minute, where the food bank queues are growing by the metre every week.

“And so, the political alternative cannot be solely an offer to manage the economy in the way it is at the moment.

“It requires fundamental transformation.”

Mr Corbyn said that is why he is delighted to work with the trades council, saying it “brings together the best of our borough, the best of our community and the best of achievements for [its] working-class people.”