There is a way Corbyn could be sworn into the council without the Queen, but it would be unusual for an opposition leader to go through the procedure.
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His spokesperson does make a good point that David Cameron didn’t cancel all other engagements in order to attend his Privy Council meeting and the Labour leader does intend to go. Corbyn has been a republican all his life and has strong views on the Queen’s role in the state.
“Either you’re in or you’re not and I think that’s what Jeremy Corbyn’s team has to be quite clear about; whether they are going to be full humble and faithful servants to her majesty, which is what the Privy Council demands”.
The political importance of Corbyn’s refusal to take part in the swearing in ceremony to become a member of the Privy Council – alongside elder statesmen, leading politicians, former prime ministers and a pool of the great and the good advising Queen Elizabeth – is that many will see this as another snub to the monarch, which may render him unpopular with a significant number of voters and the Labour Party therefore unelectable.
He also added that the new Labour leader needed to decide if he wanted to be a serious political figure or a perpetual rebel.
‘Although Jeremy was unavailable for today’s meeting, he has confirmed he will be joining the Privy Council.
Senior Tory MP and historian Keith Simpson, a Privy Council member since past year, said: “It is a snub for the Queen in the sense that she is a constitutional monarch and she represents the constitutional way in which we do business”.
Mr Duncan, who is also a Privy Counsellor, said Mr Corbyn seemed to want to put politics above the Queen. A source close to the Labour leader said he had “no idea” what he would be wearing.
Despite being an MP since 1983, he claimed not to know anything about the formalities of leading his party – which hints at how unlikely a leader he is.
The Queen, who returned to Buckingham Palace from her summer holidays in Balmoral on Wednesday will meet her Privy Councillors for the first time in ten weeks today.
He would be the first Labour leader of the Opposition not to carry out the traditional ceremony.
Mr Corbyn was criticised for refusing to sing the national anthem at Battle of Britain commemorations last month.
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‘My friends – we can not let that man inflict his security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology on the country we love, ‘ the Prime Minister said.
