Eye on the left: Behind the "new party" squabbles

Zarah Sultana’s decision to quit Labour and declare she would co-lead a new left party with Jeremy Corbyn reveals much about how what many hope will be a radical alternative is being stitched together in secret.

Instead of democratic debate and open involvement, we see leaks, private Zoom calls, and decisions by an unaccountable clique. If this is how the Sultana-Corbyn group plans to challenge Starmer, it risks repeating the very bureaucratic politics that led to the downfall of Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

We only know the story behind Sultana’s 3 July "new party" declaration because it was reported in the capitalist press, not because anyone involved chose to explain their actions. The details of what happened among a small group - few of whom are elected politicians, still less accountable to any organised "base" - come to us via Gabriel Pogrund’s article in the Sunday Times (6 July). One side in the spat, presumably Corbyn supporters, leaked the version they wanted public.

Piecing things together, the story is roughly this. There were debates in Corbyn’s circle about what exactly to launch. Some favoured a party proper, but the dominant view - pushed by Andrew Feinstein, Corbyn himself, and Jamie Driscoll - was for an “umbrella” under which local candidates with existing profiles could stand. The “umbrella” model seems to have more support.

New divisions emerged on when to launch a project. By all accounts, Corbyn has been reluctant to move quickly. Why isn’t clear, but his public comments suggest he wants a broader network on the ground first, with groups of ex-Labour councillors. He appears to be busy co-ordinating with those groups of ex-Labour councillors and with others who have previous run as candidates in local and national elections. Meanwhile, Feinstein and others grew impatient.

Talks with Sultana appear to have been underway for some time. A few weeks ago, Feinstein was cryptic when asked why the new party hadn’t been announced, referring to “sensitive” discussions - which we might guess were with her. Feinstein seems to have led talks with Sultana and is also the main conduit from the Corbyn camp to the SWP.

According to Pogrund, things came to a head on 3 July. A Zoom call was organised by the “organising committee”, apparently an inner core within the shell of the Collective proto-party launched in early 2024 but largely inactive since. The participants were selected by figures like Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s former Chief of Staff. Pogrund reports that Feinstein circulated a note backing a Corbyn-Sultana co-leadership, which Corbyn’s supporters rejected. But the chair, former Respect leader Salma Yaqoob, put it to a vote, and it passed.

Corbyn was reportedly furious, yet still appeared alongside Feinstein at events on Friday and Saturday, with no open comment on the rift.

The SWP is another player here. They were probably not on the Zoom call - Collective didn’t invite them under its umbrella, despite the SWP running a candidate in the 2024 general election. But Socialist Worker’s coverage last week (#2963, 9 July) stuck to the Collective omertà: they reported Sultana’s call for a new party (ignoring the "co-leadership" pitch), and Corbyn’s sort-of-support ("discussions are continuing"), without mentioning his 18-hour delay in responding.

Comically, they covered Corbyn’s speech at their Marxism event with no context, merely quoting his call to “build an independent political voice that unites independent groups all over the country”, apparently asserting his vision of an umbrella rather than a party.

SW declared it “urgent to turn this call into a real organisation” and endorsed the umbrella model, adding their own filters (no austerity, trans rights, free Palestine) with no means to enforce them. They also stayed silent on any idea that such candidates should be rooted in the labour movement or democratically accountable. Where SW did implicitly criticise the Corbyn-Sultana project, their front page tellingly dropped the word “party”, merely stating that “the new left can take on Starmer” if linked to strikes and protests - hardly the clarity needed.

Secret meetings and unaccountable leaderships are not the way forward. Meetings based on class-struggle campaigns and built on open, democratic principles would be welcome. They must give space for debate about working-class socialist politics and ongoing political activity and discussion on the streets and in workplaces, not just electoralist manoeuvres.

• More: bit.ly/zs-np

Who are the "independents"?"

Who are the independents hoping to assemble under Corbyn’s umbrella might be. The four “Gaza Independents” elected in 2024 illustrate some of the problems. Worst among them is Birmingham MP Ayoub Khan, a former Lib Dem councillor and parliamentary candidate, who since becoming an MP has called for troops to break the Birmingham bin strike.

While many independents Corbyn seeks to organise are leftish ex-Labour councillors, there are other groups too. For instance, the group around Leanne Mohamad in Ilford North (Redbridge Independents/Ilford in Conversation), who nearly defeated Wes Streeting in 2024, looks to Aspire in Tower Hamlets as their model.

Aspire currently runs Tower Hamlets council. One notable figure defending Corbyn on the “organising committee” of Collective is Amy Jackson, who was Corbyn’s political secretary when Labour leader. She then (after a stint as a Unite union official) became Chief of Staff and Head of the Mayor’s Office for Aspire’s Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets.

Whom does she represent? The answer is no-one. If this is “community-based” politics, If this is “community-based” politics, it is a narrow communalist version. Only two of them are women. It is doing more successfully what George Galloway's Respect claimed to do back in its day. There is a real risk that Corbyn’s “umbrella” will encourage exactly this kind of communalist politics.

SWP in retreat

This marks a considerable retreat for the SWP. In March, they launched We Demand Change (WDC). According to their own conference resolutions, it had two purposes: first, to unite the wave of demonstrations - over Gaza, trans rights, climate action, and the emerging disability benefit cuts - under their leadership; second, to use that to launch electoral challenges to Labour as early as the May 2026 local elections.

They promised WDC groups nationwide and pledged that when Starmer’s disability benefit cuts came to Parliament, WDC would spearhead a “day of rage.”

None of that happened. WDC-branded events have taken place in only a handful of places, and few structures beyond WhatsApp groups have been established. WDC has played no role in resisting the disability cuts. A revitalised DPAC has had significant impact, and there has been a revolt in the local Labour Parties, but nothing from WDC.

I was at the DPAC demos in Westminster before and during the second reading vote (30 June and 1 July). Some SWP members are active in DPAC, but there was no WDC presence - indeed no visible SWP presence at all, enraged or otherwise.

The SWP has dabbled in electoral politics. In the May elections, they stood an “independent” in a Chesterfield council by-election, winning 9% and mainly taking votes from the Greens. They declared that made them “the left opposition to Labour,” even though they neither ran as the SWP nor matched the previous Green vote.

In late June, another SWP “independent” in Edinburgh won just 39 votes out of over 6,000 - 0.6% of votes cast and only 0.2% of those eligible - coming 8th, behind assorted cranks and mavericks. It is striking that despite presumably running a campaign, the SWP failed so badly they did not even mention the result in Socialist Worker.

They appear desperate to be part of Corbyn’s umbrella, but also to realise they will not get a free hand to set up local groups under their leadership as they had hoped.