2 months ago
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The suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana has announced she is resigning from Labour to join Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance, declaring she will “co-lead the founding of a new party” – even though no formal agreement is said to have been reached on whether the group will become a party or who would lead it, the Guardian understands.
Sultana, who represents Coventry South, posted a statement on Thursday describing Westminster as “broken” and claiming the two main parties offer “nothing but managed decline and broken promises”. She urged supporters to “join us” in creating what she presented as a new party.
Her declaration took some in the alliance by surprise and has exposed divisions over strategy. While Corbyn has long hinted at plans to establish a more organised vehicle for leftwing and pro-Palestinian campaigning, he has so far avoided confirming any formal structure or leadership arrangements.
Corbyn has not committed to the project becoming a party, or endorsed any specific leadership roles. The Guardian understands he was frustrated by Sultana’s unilateral announcement, which some regard as premature and potentially counterproductive.
So far, he has confined his public comments to cautious remarks about the group “coming together” and “offering an alternative”, without outlining further details. Speaking on ITV’s Peston programme this week, he confirmed talks were under way but did not rule out other possibilities. “That grouping [of independents] will come together, there will be an alternative,” he said.
Corbyn is said to have been disappointed by Sultana’s unilateral declaration, seeing it as an attempt to bounce the wider alliance into endorsing her framing. While the former Labour leader has been exploring ways to consolidate independent MPs and leftwing campaigners, he has deliberately avoided defining the project as a party or appointing figureheads, preferring to build consensus before making any formal announcement.
The MP for Islington North is reluctant to take on the title of leader as consistent with his preference for collective decision-making, and is believed to think that imposing a hierarchy too soon would risk fragmenting the already fragile coalition of independents he spent months encouraging to work together.
Sultana has sat in the Commons as an independent MP since September last year, after voting to abolish the two-child benefit cap.
In her statement she said she would “do it again” and accused the government of seeking to make disabled people suffer.
Corbyn led Labour from 2015 to 2020 before he was suspended over his response to the party’s antisemitism report. He retained his Islington North seat last year as an independent candidate.
The Independent Alliance includes four other independent MPs who all beat Labour candidates and MPs over the party’s position on Gaza. The group has the same number of MPs – five – as Reform UK and the Democratic Unionist party, and more than the Green party and Plaid Cymru on four.
In her full statement, Sultana added: “A year ago I was suspended by the Labour party for voting to abolish the two-child benefit cap and lift 400,000 children out of poverty. I’d do it again. I voted against scrapping winter fuel payments for pensioners. I’d do it again. Now, the government wants to make disabled people suffer; they just can’t decide how much.”
The move could dismantle the left-of-centre vote and present a headache for Starmer, who has repositioned Labour in the political centre.
Corbyn’s group includes Shockat Adam, the MP for Leicester South; Ayoub Khan, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr; Adnan Hussain, the MP for Blackburn, and Iqbal Mohamed, the MP for Dewsbury and Batley.
Before Sultana’s statement, Corbyn had said any new party would focus on poverty, inequality and a foreign policy “based on peace rather than war”. Asked if he would lead the party, he said: “I’m here to work – I’m here to serve the people in the way I’ve always tried to do.
“The Alliance group of MPs has worked very hard and very well together over the past year in parliament, and we’re coming up to our first anniversary,” Corbyn added.
Last September, Corbyn addressed a meeting to prepare for a leftwing political party named Collective which was also attended by the former Unite general secretary Len McCluskey and a number of former independent candidates.
Key figures in the group said they hoped the party would act as an incubator for future leaders who could replace Corbyn as a figurehead of the left, and aim to contest seats at the next general election.
At the private meeting founders said they would begin drawing up democratic structures for a new party to launch.
A source close to Corbyn said his attendance was not an official endorsement and that he had attended the meeting to “listen to and share a variety of views about the way forward for the left”.
