At an anti-war demonstration in London last month, attended by tens of thousands but barely mentioned by the British press, the former Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was invited to the podium to address the crowd. The atmosphere, in an instant, turned giddy. People had been waiting for him, and while this was, first and foremost, a protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its then ongoing assault on Iran, the crowd, palpably, was thrilled by his presence. Some of the more eager attendees edged closer to the front, as shorter people raised themselves up on tippy-toes and extended their necks, endeavoring to catch a glimpse of this now 76-year-old parliamentarian. England doesn’t really produce rock stars anymore, but, for a certain type of person—a non-property-owning English millennial, basically—Corbyn decidedly is one.
Corbyn is an unlikely subject for a cult of personality. He is a mild-mannered man, a touch peculiar, but fundamentally just a decent person with principles that he tends to stick to—which marks him as a wild aberration within British politics. It means he is despised by right-wingers and centrists both, while many on the left, with so few public figures to look to for leadership, revere him as a sort of icon. Through a bizarre collision of coincidence, historical circumstance, and his own understated, almost-but-not-quite-eccentric charm, Corbyn is perhaps the only person capable of mobilizing the country’s battered and confused left-wing, even today, nearly six years after his and their inglorious electoral defeat. It is why he is going to be so important in establishing a new British party of the left, which, finally, is officially going to happen.
News of the as-yet unnamed party’s founding was announced at the start of July, and, as is fitting for a fledgling left-wing organization, it was broken in a manner that bordered on the calamitous. Rumors had been swirling of a new left-wing party for some time, but the actual statement of intent came abruptly, catching everyone—including, it seems, Corbyn himself—by surprise. Zarah Sultana, who, until recently, was a Labour MP, was the person to deliver the news, tweeting, “Today, after 14 years, I’m resigning from the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn and I will co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country. Join us. The time is now.”
The time may very well have been “now” from Sultana’s perspective, but Corbyn seems not to have quite realized it. After Sultana’s announcement, there was a deafening silence from Corbyn, which created the space for rumor to impose itself. Corbyn, it was reported, had been totally thrown by Sultana’s announcement, and he was “furious” about it. Whether Corbyn is humanly capable of expressing fury, rather than a mild displeasure, is an open question, but, regardless of the rumor’s validity, it is plainly true that the situation did not look good. His silence endured overnight, before, finally, he confirmed vaguely that “discussions are ongoing” the following day. Corbyn and Sultana’s politics may be righteous, but their comms game, by the grace of all that is holy, will need to be honed.
Sultana’s break with the Labour Party is well overdue. She served as an MP for the party from 2019 until 2024, when she, along with six others, was suspended by Starmer for challenging his commitment to a policy that prevents impoverished families with more than two children from accessing welfare for their “extra” kids. Removing the policy would, according to research by the Child Poverty Action Group, lift 350,000 children out of poverty, but helping the poor is not Starmer’s raison d’être. His concerns lie more with militarism and supporting a genocide in Gaza, which also puts him at odds with Sultana, who has been consistently outspoken about Israeli atrocities and was herself a speaker at that same protest in London that Corbyn addressed. Sultana is the antithesis of Starmer’s authoritarian, war-mongering rule, so the question, really, is why it took her quite so long to break with his party. But better late than never.
Corbyn and Sultana have, at last, presented a more coherent, unified front, publishing a joint statement yesterday, laying out the broad outlines of their developing party. “The system is rigged,” they wrote. “The system is rigged when 4.5 million children live in poverty in the sixth richest country in the world. The system is rigged when giant corporations make a fortune from rising bills. The system is rigged when this government says there is no money for the poor, but billions for war.”
They then laid out their vision for “taxing the very richest in our society,” reversing the privatization of the National Health Service, and “bringing energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership.” They spoke of the need to invest in social housing and to challenge fossil fuel giants. They explicitly demanded a “a free and independent Palestine,” calling out the government’s “complicity in crimes against humanity” and demanding an “end to all arms sales to Israel.” They, in essence, called for a restoration of social democracy at home and an end to colonial violence abroad.
The appetite for a project like this is clearly present throughout the country. Labour’s membership has collapsed since Starmer took over from Corbyn as leader, and plenty of those that Starmer has alienated will inevitably drift towards this new party. And, while polling four years before an election is scheduled to take place should be taken with shovelfuls of salt, the early signs are encouraging. A YouGov survey conducted earlier this month suggested that 18 percent of the public would consider voting for the new party, while another, conducted by Find Out Now, found that the 15 percent share of support for the new party was equal to Labour’s. Support for the Green Party, too, seems to be on the rise—particularly in light of a bid by eco-socialist Zack Polanski to take over its leadership. Should Polanski succeed in the upcoming leadership race, the traditionally soft-left party will be thrust onto a more radical path.
The British left is, finally, remerging from its long hibernation, but it will need to coordinate, with the new party and the Greens ensuring that they don’t step on each other’s toes. There will be challenges to any potential alliance. The establishment and its press will be vicious. They already defeated Corbynism once, and they will seek to do so again. The Tories, the right-wing of the Labour Party, the press, and even some elements of the left all perpetuated the fiction that Corbyn, a committed anti-racist, is an antisemite. Polanski, a Jewish man, himself once bought into it, though he has since admitted that he got it wrong and has said he would be open to working with Corbyn’s new party in the future. But the antisemitism smears will be slung all over again, although, this time, the public will be less receptive to them. Having seen these awful photos of starving, dying children coming from Gaza, people understand to a greater extent than ever before what the Israeli state stands for, and the labeling of pro-Palestinian sentiment as antisemitism won’t work as it used to. But there will be other attacks that the left will need to steel itself against.
The far-right Reform party is presently on a march to power. Starmerism, after only a year in office, is limp and lifeless, and the Tories seem totally spent. It is only the left that can oppose Reform and offer a viable future for Britain. Building this party will be slow and tedious, and it will be subject to constant attacks and setbacks. But, with the weird charge of Corbyn driving it forward, it does have potential. The party has arrived later than is ideal, but the relief is that it is here at all. The socialist soul-searching has gone on for long enough. It’s time for a bit of movement.
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