As The Guardian notes this morning:
MP Zarah Sultana, suspended from Labour, has announced she is resigning from the party to join Jeremy Corbyn's Independent Alliance.
Sultana declared she will “co-lead the founding of a new party” – even though, while there was an agreement in principle to form one, the timing and leadership had not been settled, the Guardian understands.
My problem is the confusion that is obviously surrounding this announcement. It does not augur well. And until I am sure what is going on and what this party is all about, I am not sure what to say about this development.
What I do note is this on the Action Network:
However, I cannot be sure that is endorsed by Zarah Sultana.
The confusion is unfortunate.
Reliable news would be good.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Without a reliable Scape goat (immigrants) for people to punch down on they will struggle to compete with Reform. Reform’s ground game is very good. They are better at messaging than they ever will be at governing, and they have the Right wing press to amplify their message. The Left have been vilified once again with the nebulous threat of being “woke”, the new Commie accusation. I’m glad to see a new party, but I don’t expect much.
It would be nice…………………but the devil will be in the detail won’t it, especially how the new party will see money.
I admire Zarah Sultana. She wants to change the world for the better and that can only be a good thing.
I wonder if she is ready for what is in store for her if she goes up against the billionaires who are very happy with the way things are, thank you very much.
Hope is always a good thing, and Zarah gives me hope.
I would expect something as significant as this to be associated with agent provocateurs, fraudsters, activists jumping the gun, misinformation especially from Labour’s LFI, Labour Together, McTeam, the MSM, some ordinary understandable confusion from the main players, and eventually, the truth. My main warning – watch out for the scammers after your cash.
Also, the organised smears will start soon. There will initially be “antisemitic” smears based on old social media activity. As Zara is so young, that could present quite a challenge for Labour’s Asif Kaplan – maybe he could check her school reports? Then there will be the misogyny and Islamophobia, and the general abuse in the hope of breaking her down like they did to Apsana Begum. And of course all the old smears about Corbyn will start again.
Eventually something will emerge.
Given the political, economic, organisational, and above all, hypocritical moral mess that is Starmer’s government, 5 years into his party leadership, with an entire party machine and civil service at his disposal, I will cut any new political organisation a bit of slack if it looks a bit chaotic to start with.
A whole new national party organisation to replace LINO in 5 minutes, is not going to happen.
A reasonable goal is to break up our 2 party STP (and get PR), and secondly, to destroy the macro-economic “household analogy”, and start making REAL political choices based on truthful economics. That 2nd part is the hard bit.
It’s going to be messy, but the current setup is VERY messy, and it is killing people on a daily basis, at home and abroad (austerity, NHS, war, aid cuts, Israel), and will kill more.
I agree, there is desperately a need to cajole and threaten Labour from the left. However, my concern is threefold:
a) The Green Party exists and has been more successful gathering leftwing votes, and with a potential Zach Polanski leadership will be ‘green-left populist’ (figures like Michael Chessum, Grace Blakeley and James Meadway have joined the Green Party with a view for a potential Polanski bid).
b) Whatever the new Corbyn grouping will be, it will likely be anti EU/lexit orientated, and have nothing to say on rejoining the EU/Customs Union/Single Market. (In contrast, the Green Party is the most forward in rejoining the EU.)
c) It will be uninterested in constitutional change, and Scottish and Welsh independence. Would likely have a Michael Foot like ‘parliamentary socialism’ ‘one more heave and Westminster can be socialist. It is radical constitutional change that is needed alongside radical economic change.
I don’t know, but these are just my various hunches.
If only the Green Party was not taken over by obsessive trans who have completely lost focus on climate and ecological disaster and instead only focus on trans issues, along with removing any women who have any gender critical views / want safe spaces for women to remain just that.
I see the likely outcomes of a new Corbyn grouping differently from Duncan MacInnes. His point (b) re it being likely to be anti-EU seems unlikely when the damage of Brexit to the UK economy is so manifest and public opinion now favours re-entry or closer alliance. Likewise his point (c) that the new Corbyn grouping would be uninterested in constitutional change: why would he be against constitutional change when current electoral rules for Westminster are so clearly skewed in favour of the “Single Transferable Party”? Similarly he’s more likely to see Scotland and Wales as ‘low-hanging fruit’, given their past histories as hotbeds of Socialism. However I don’t think the pro-independence Scots and Welsh communities would be likely to switch their support to yet another Westminster party unless Corbyn commits to granting a clear, feasible path to independence (which I think unlikely).
One other disruptive factor will be the stance of the mainstream media towards a new Corbyn-led party. They went ruthlessly against him before and they’ll do it again, given that the bulk of the MSM are pro right-wing. Any support he gets from the MSM is likely to be the potential splitting of left-leaning voters into 2 factions.
All good questions, Ken
Interesting….guess birth of a political party is messy, and the real Labour Party did it without the glare of 24 hour media and social media.
I hope something good comes of it, and we get a better democratic contract than worst past the post, and more transparency of the Wasteminster puppet show.
You should put yourself forward as their economic advisor.
I have often admired Zarah Sutana’s passion and principles.
I wish her luck but protest by itself is not a program.
Principles and a list of aspirations are essential for strategic direction but not a program of action.
Any new party needs a well thought practical program. It needs thorough analysis and a plan.
Where can she find this?
I suggest this blog is a good place to start. Perhaps also Gary Stevenson.
I would help.
But I help all politicians who are not racists if they are sincere.
Zarah Sultana announced her formal departure from Labour in X. She had de facto already left Labour as she was suspended from the Parliamentary a Labour Party nearly a year ago for daring to vote for a Socialist policy (proposed not by Starmer’s Labour, but the SNP).
She has since been unrelenting in attacking Starmer’s increasingly right wing policies that first decided to save money by taking it off the aid to the poorest foreign nations and redirecting it to weapons; and then to reduce the social security income for the poorest in the U.K.and redirect the money with £15 bn to new nuclear warheads and £40bn to three new nuclear reactor designs. No wonder Zarah has had enough
https://x.com/zarahsultana/status/1940850950681554996
I hope that, at the very least, a new party will be able to shift the Overton Window to the left. Didn’t Peter Oborne comment that Corbyn managed this when he was Labour leader?
I would like to see the 26 with principles who voted against Yvette Cooper included in discussions about a new opposition party.
Zara Sultana is an excellent speaker, committed socialist, helpfully for a change a woman and from outside London as. Coventry MP. She is young but experienced in Parliament.
I think she has the certainty of Joan of Arc and the charm of Audrey Hepburn.
I think it’s very exciting. JC had a huge Labour membership and supporters when he was Labour leader and we are all still out here waiting for an opportunity with hope and determination,
Could the 35 left MPs join at once?
Not sure if input from competitor organisations is welcome here but this seems to be fairly up-to-date inside info to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8SxgmjA4U
Jeremy already has a very popular agenda which he developed with John McDonnell. The very nearly got elected in 2017 and would have done, if it hadn’t been for the sabotage from within the Labour Party itself, all very well documented now. I remember that manifesto, and it was brilliant, and costed. Since I discovered Richard, I have often heard him say very similar things about how to govern that Jeremy’s manifesto promised to deliver. What about “free education for life”, proper funding for the NHS, re-nationalisation of water, our own pharmaceutical provision, and many more highly desirable things. I will be at the front of the queue to vote for that agenda again, like I did when Jeremy was leader of the Labour Party, and I think millions of others will do the same.
I basically wrote the original Corbynomics.
Talking about “sabotage”, Ive been waiting for Gary Nunns’ book of that title (about the denestration of Corbyn by his own party) to get published for a LONG time, and now I hear from Blackman’s, it won’t be published at all. Anyone know why?
I knew it! Everything I’ve heard you say made me think it.
I think that a crucial thing will be how to position with existing left parties. Not only the Greens but also the party that emerged in the NE of England originally to support Jamie Driscoll’s mayoral candidacy. Then there’s the Welsh and Scots dimensions as already mentioned.
I left the Greens for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and I think I’m not alone in looking for a triangulation of principles with electoral chances. Something like the Left Alliance might be needed.
The obvious answer is that a coaltion is required
Bernie Sanders and AOC are making waves from the left in the USA. Could JC and Zarah Sultana do the same in the UK?
Sorry typo- can it be corrected- I meant Joan of Arc not Joan of Zara!
Done…..