At 8pm on Thursday evening, when most people in Westminster were likely stood, pint in hand, chatting at the pub, Zarah Sultana made a surprise announcement. Well, maybe not so surprise. The MP for Coventry South was among the seven Labour MPs to have the whip removed last year after voting to remove the two-child benefit cap. She, along with John McDonnell and Apsana Begum, have yet to be reinstated (all four of their fellow rebels are now back in the party). But last night, Sultana made clear there would be no going back. At 8.11pm she posted a statement on X which confirmed she had resigned her membership of the Labour party and would soon co-lead the founding of a new left-wing party. Her co-leader, she said, was Jeremy Corbyn.
More than 12 hours after Sultana broke cover on politics worst kept secret, Corbyn has yet to confirm her news. Shortly after Sultana’s statement, reports began to emerge that Corbyn had not signed off on her announcement and was “furious and bewildered” at the way it had been handled. The timing of this is odd. Speaking on Wednesday evening, Corbyn told Robert Peston: “There are independent groups all around the country… there is a thirst for an alternative view to be put. I am working with all of those people. That grouping will come together.” That was the strongest hint Corbyn has given to date on the creation of a new, left-wing party.
When I asked Corbyn what this meant on Thursday morning, he told me: “There is growing appetite for cooperation – and come the next election I am hopeful there will be a united voice for equality, sustainability and peace.” (Though a source close to him added: “cooperation” and “united voice” can mean many different things.) That he has yet to speak out publicly on Sultana’s claims, suggests he did not expect her announcement. A source close to Corbyn confirmed this, adding he “isn’t pleased”. They said a new party, or movement, was on the cards, but Sultana had jumped the gun. Momentum sent an email out last night saying that they respectfully disagreed with Sultana’s exit from Labour.
There have been rumblings around a new party headed up by Corbyn and including the four “Gaza independents” in the House of Commons for some time. In June, Pamela Fitzpatrick, the director of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, registered a new party, “Arise”. Fitzpatrick recently made the case for a new left-wing party on a Novara Media podcast.
While we cannot be sure that this new registration has anything to do with the former Labour leader, the name of this new party is Corbyn-adjacent, emulating the refrain of the “Masque of Anarchy”, by Percy Shelley: “Rise like Lions after slumber… ye are the many, they are the few.” Possibly Fitzpatrick’s new registration was the vehicle in waiting.
One former member of Corbyn’s operation said on WhatsApp that while a new party was “definitely on the cards”, Sultana had “jumped the gun” with her announcement. At the end of June, Andrew Murray, Corbyn’s former aide, suggested in the Morning Star that two options for a new party were being considered. One, Collective, a new national party founded by Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s former chief of staff, would install him as an interim leader – despite Corbyn himself having reservations about this idea. The other, which does not yet have a name, would be a looser group, possibly with Sultana and Corbyn as figureheads.
There was clearly a miscommunication last night. A source close to Corbyn told me at the end of May that if Sultana expressed an interest in founding a new party, then the MP for Islington North would do it. To some, Sultana is seen as Corbyn’s heir, a younger, fresh-faced and popular leader-in-waiting. But her recent movements have been somewhat erratic: one recent rumour suggested she had sacked most of her staff (Sultana has neither confirmed nor denied this). Some have speculated that she became impatient and tried to bounce Corbyn into it. Her potential co-leader certainly didn’t like that. This came on the eve of the return of the ten-minute rule bill, calling for an independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in Gaza; a moment he had hoped to use to show up the government. This chaotic news has overshadowed his plans.
It looks messy. The launch of a new left-wing party following these two terrible weeks for the government could have been a powerful and significant moment. As George Eaton reported last week, exclusive polling by More in Common for the New Statesman found that a potential new Corbyn led party would gain 10 per cent of the vote. Instead, this false-start launch has been met with mockery and disappointment. (“They couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery,” one disgruntled Labour insider texts.) Whatever happens next, Corbyn will need to make some form of statement today – and going by this long silence, he’s clearly not sure what he wants to say next.
[See also: A year of crisis and political fragmentation]
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