Zarah Sultana's "new-party" project

Pic: Facebook

On 3 July Zarah Sultana MP declared she was leaving the Labour Party and would "co-lead" a new party with Jeremy Corbyn. The same day, Andrew Feinstein, who has an ANC rather than Labour background, and stood as an "independent" against Keir Starmer, announced that "co-led" new party at the SWP's Marxism 2025 festival.

Information since, both from the well-connected journalist Gabriel Pogrund and from Andrew Murray of the Morning Star, who supports Sultana's move, indicates that she did that without Corbyn's agreement and to his dismay. Eventually Corbyn said: discussions are continuing. Murray reckons that this time, unlike with Collective in early 2024, the "new party" will actually emerge within a few months.

Politically, however, Sultana's venture has the same problems as Collective and similar announcements and semi-announcements over recent years (Transform, Majority, etc.).

• Vague sub-Corbynite politics in place of working-class socialism

• An approach where the “leader” (or "co-leaders") define the party rather than the party defining the “leaders”

• Little promise of democratic structure

• Little promise of non-electoral activity

• Commitment to work with an existing group of MPs (“the Gaza independents”) who are not left wing, and one of whom has publicly advocated using troops to break a strike.

There is no suggestion that the “new party” may play any noticeable part in coming battles over benefit cuts and NHS and trans rights. In fact, Sultana's announcement means that she, and whoever follows her, are bailing out of the ongoing battles on those fronts within the Labour Party and the affiliated unions - battles which have visibly made a difference, pushing back Starmer and Reeves on the cuts to PIP access.

Sultana’s statement talked about a choice between “socialism or barbarism”, but as a choice... in the 2029 election.

In fact, so far as we can see so far, the new initiative is in almost every way less promising as a political rallying of the left than the Green Party, and we have written recently on why we think bailing out into the Green Party is not a good direction for left activists.

We will not be bailing out or counselling friends in the Labour Party to quit. On the contrary, we point out to left-wingers who have drifted into “staying away” the new evidence that battle inside the Labour Party can attract attention and make some difference, and urge them to renew their attention. We believe that continued union-Labour campaigning could, if strong enough, force a full climbdown.

Of course many activists are frustrated with and despondent about the Labour Party, Starmer's sharp turn to the right, and the moves since 2020 to stifle internal dissent. The Sultana initiative may well attract bigger numbers than Collective did in 2024, though there are few signs yet of it drawing forces comparable to Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party of 1996, which was relatively active and pluralist for a short while. We are critical, but not sneering or dismissive.

As we have done with We Demand Change, wherever meetings are called which offer openings for discussion, we will be there, arguing:

• for an immediate focus on class-struggle campaigning, together with the union and Labour left, against disability benefit cuts, for restoration of the NHS, for taxing top wealth, etc.

• for any electoral initiatives to be based on working-class socialist politics, democratic organisation, and connection to ongoing non-electoral political activity

• for electoral initiatives for May 2026 to include a definite policy for combatting and reversing local government cuts

• and explaining why we continue to support activity in the Labour Party and in the political structures of the affiliated unions, and why we oppose disaffiliation.

We believe the best route to an even halfway-healthy new labour-movement-based party is through insurgent struggles within the existing structures of the labour movement, leading to splits and recompositions, rather than through unilateral bailing-out and declarations of new parties by celebrity leaders.