Late on Thursday night, Zarah Sultana MP released a statement stating she would be resigning from the Labour party to ‘co-lead the founding of a new party’ with Jeremy Corbyn.
This news brought elation from many who are seeking a left alternative to Starmer’s Labour. This was the perfect time for a socialist MP to prove they are different from the established parties and champion a socialist alternative. On the one hand, the Starmer government was facing a political crisis based on its attempts to take money from disabled people. On the other hand, it was pushing through its deeply authoritarian proscription of Palestine Action, as part of its wider criminalisation of protest. Here was the moment for something else – resisting both the attacks on welfare whilst championing civil liberties and pushing for an end to British participation in the genocide.
Yet, amongst the elation, a nervous energy grew. Corbyn did not release a statement at the same time. Someone started briefing Gabriel Pogrund, Sunday Times journalist, that Corbyn hadn’t agreed.1 Only on Friday afternoon did Corbyn release something. He was ‘delighted that she will help us build a real alternative.’ He was pleased to announce that ‘the democratic foundations of a new kind of political party will soon take shape.’ Rather than explicitly stating it was launching, and they were going to co-lead it, we were left with the opaque ‘discussions are ongoing.’ I’m sure I wasn’t alone in experiencing a deep gloom the more I read. This was a holding statement.
As of writing on the weekend of the 5th, we are left no clearer. Corbyn could have clarified further at an event with Leanne Mohamad and Andrew Feinstein on Friday night, but his speech developed nothing concrete. As of the evening of the 5th, 37,566 have signed up to ‘Team Zarah’, the site they were directed to in her statement.2 That’s tens of thousands of people who were keen to join a new left party, who are simply now left in limbo.
More worryingly, as people attending the picnic to mark Corbyn’s year since being elected as an independent suggest, he continues to promote the idea of an ‘alliance’ of grassroots challengers with shared values, as opposed to starting a new national membership party – directly contradicting the thrust of Sultana’s announcement.
People have been left confused – the timing was perfect, the appetite was there, the backroom ‘leaders’ of the left have been clearly discussing this for nearly two years, and we are once again left in the lurch. Whether intended or not, now the starting gun has been fired by Sultana, for those outside these opaque processes Corbyn suddenly appears as the barrier.
Why is this?
Once again, we don’t know. As has been the tedious, mind killing experience of previous months, every drinks, meeting, or protest eventually turn to ‘I heard…’. A rumour mill churns, as people are left unsure about what to commit to. This has entirely been the product of how opaque this process has been.
This is something those arguing that the left should fight through the Greens, around Greens Organise, have capitalised on through simply having a party and person willing to present themselves for consideration to the public.3 We are now left in a situation where those arguing for unity of socialists, never mind the broader forces of the left, are increasingly forced to relate on two fronts – to a likely Polanski win and a still nebulous Sultana-Corbyn project. The pull to the Greens has been the product of the dithering of those pushing a new left project – creating greater headaches for the left in Britain.
The reason for this non-launch could be tedious court politics. Is it the fact that people wanted Corbyn as sole leader? We could be witnessing the vacuous manoeuvres of various individuals associated with the MPs who want to ensure ‘their vision’, ‘their role’ or ‘their strategy’ is adopted. At a certain point, it’s not worth speculating. The replies should be the same. If you want to be leader, stand up and ask people to give it to you. If your strategy or vision for the organisation is so good, put it out in public. If we, as socialists, believe that change comes from people taking mass action, we should have the trust in putting the case to them.
More sympathetically, Corbyn has floated on various occasions the need for a left alternative to come from an alliance of local struggles, rooted in the various groups which have mobilised around the genocide and other struggles. As such, there remains this perennial idea that there should not be a national membership organisation immediately, instead a coalition of ‘real’ local challenges will come together in advance of the 2026 locals, based on some shared values, and maybe it will become a national organisation. In doing so, the hope is that this ensures there is a real mass activist base which pays attention to local specificities, and feeds into the wider platform. Politics from below!
This idea sounds lovely, but people on the left in Britain should not fall for it. Rather than producing an alliance of real mass local struggles, it has, instead, created a perverse logic which is potentially detrimental to the wider project. Imagine you wish to have influence in a new left party, which is being built in an alliance from these local challengers. What is one major way to secure your influence in this organisation? It is developing a claim to being the oppositional candidate at the 2026 local elections in an area – often as quickly as possible. This means, if the new left party wants to construct its national alliance, it has to deal with your new group. Thus, rather than local challenges emerging organically from the varieties of struggles in recent years, everyone who wants ‘in’ is rushing to proclaim themselves the local challenger. We are seeing, and will see more over the coming weeks, a variety of challenges and local organisations announced only tangentially related to the real extent of their organisational capacity and mass support in their area.
Certainly, the larger left groups, particularly the Socialist Workers Party, worried about the possibility of being sidelined or purged, are now sending their local branches into movement spaces around Palestine, around disability justice, and so on, attempting to ‘hegemonise the left’ and push forward their role in the 2026 challenge – building on ‘We Demand Change’ and other links. This is not bad in of itself – in nearly every area, it will be impossible to build such a left party without the existing organised left. Certainly, we need to start planning for the 2026 elections now, and they are right to seize the initiative when others are wavering.
However, there is now a fundamental tension in the setting up and running of local challenges for 2026 – between doing it because it is the best thing for the struggle and doing it to secure a role in any forthcoming left party. Considerations of influence create many pressures that prevent us producing the best candidates possible for areas, prevent us thinking strategically about viable areas to contest, and prevent us confronting the actual question of how this builds towards the end goal (the political independence of the exploited and oppressed and their mass activity).
So rather than an alliance of national local groups creating a healthy ecosystem built from the bottom up, leading to a flowering of local struggles feeding a fully developed left party, we see the same behind the scenes bun fights. It’s unedifying, unnecessary and continues to exclude many waiting for a new organisation from having a say in their political future.
So where do we go?
The solution to this is all around us – this process must be opened up; we should have a national membership organisation and begin a process of member-led coordination of the struggles in advance of 2026. Whatever ends up being produced as a new left organisation, the existing far-left organisations, the Corbynite career politicians, and more will all find a way in, no matter what great attempts have been made over the last two years to prevent it. Our only hope is the mass of people who will, if the cards are played right, join such an organisation – they will bring their experiences, their scrutiny, their energy to this project. If your strategies are so good, show them, perhaps you might learn something. If we aspire to a world where every cook can and must govern, we must act like it. Revolutions are festivals of the exploited and oppressed – it’s time to remove the bouncers and let the people in.
Anyone close to this process, whoever you are, should recognise Sultana is right – she has read the moment and has trusted people who are begging for such an organisation. Now, encourage all waverers to close ranks behind her, particularly Corbyn. For those who have already jumped to the Greens, if Polanski wins as well as a new formation coming about, struggle will need to be had with the significant conservative element of the Greens to secure an electoral alliance, and those in a new left party should argue for the same when competing for key seats.4 For those like myself waiting for the project to start, this means Sultana should be treated as the pole of attraction, especially if in the worst case it is her alone. We will bring our politics into this space, we will develop it constructively, and we will try to rebuild mass socialist politics in Britain again. If Corbyn, or others holding up this process, are unwilling or vacillating, then so be it. Rather than having to kill our darlings, we have watched them slowly drown themselves. Let us step over them into a new national organisation, where the real struggle begins.
- This has then led to a generally unedifying series of exchanges being leaked to the Times, producing a generally embarrassing article – https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/texts-show-team-corbyn-opposed-new-party-minutes-after-launch-0phz8xm8z
↩︎ - https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-team-zarah
↩︎ - That Greens Organise planned to launch their own membership at the weekend is at least one part of this whole sordid process.
↩︎ - Insofar as a smart new left party will be competing with the Greens in Ilford North, which cannot be allowed – the rural conservative bastions of a different wing of English Greens are likely going to rapidly become less viable for both projects.
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