Pro-Palestine MP Zarah Sultana has announced she has quit Labour to join forces with Jeremy Corbyn in creating a new left-wing party.
Former opposition leader Mr Corbyn claimed yesterday there was a ‘thirst’ among voters ‘for an alternative view to be put’ forward – and did not rule out leading it at the age of 76.
He has now been boosted by the arrival of Ms Sultana, who has sat in the Commons as an independent MP since she had the Labour whip withdrawn last year.
It comes despite The Times reporting Mr Corbyn has not yet agreed to join a new party with Ms Sultana.
In fresh chaos for Sir Keir Starmer, the 31-year-old Corbynista politician said in a statement posted on X that she was ‘resigning from the Labour Party’.
Ms Sultana added: ‘Jeremy Corbyn and I will co-lead the founding of a new party, with other independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country.’
She said that ‘Westminster is broken but the real crisis is deeper’ and the ‘two-party system offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises’.
‘A year ago I was suspended by the Labour Party for voting to abolish the two-child benefit cap and list 400,000 children out of poverty,’ the former Labour MP added. 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.’
Pro-Palestine MP Zarah Sultana, pictured last month, has announced she has quit Labour to join forces with Jeremy Corbyn in creating a new left-wing party
Mr Corbyn claimed there was a ‘thirst’ among voters ‘for an alternative view to be put’ forward, in a TV interview
He has now been boosted by the arrival of Ms Sultana, pictured with him in 2022, who has sat in the Commons as an independent MP since she had the Labour whip withdrawn last year
It comes after a poll last week found that a new Left-wing party led by Mr Corbyn would attract 10 per cent of voters and pose a fresh challenge for Sir Keir Starmer
In response to the Ms Sultana’s shock move, Mr Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: ‘The people running Labour at the moment need to ask themselves why a young, articulate, talented, extremely dedicated socialist feels she now has no home in the Labour Party and has to leave.’
Mr Corbyn has sat as the independent MP for Islington North since being suspended by Labour in 2020 for downplaying the extent of anti-Semitism in the party under his leadership.
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Corbynista MP Zarah Sultana says ‘we are all Palestine Action’ – as ministers vow to ban group
He was expelled last year but retained his seat in the general election, since when he has been part of the Independent Alliance, a loose grouping of independent MPs with left-wing political views.
Appearing on ITV‘s Peston on Wednesday night – after opposing plans to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group – he said he was working with groups ‘all around the country’
‘That grouping will come together. There will be an alternative view and there will be an alternative put there which is about a society that deals with poverty, inequality and a foreign policy that’s based on peace rather than war,’ he said.
Asked if he would like to 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.’
Last month, Labour was urged to expel firebrand MP Ms Sultana for continuing to back Palestine Action, even as it is being prohibited as an illegal terrorist organisation.
She posted on X that ‘we are all Palestine Action’ after the Home Office said it would proscribe the group behind the attack on RAF jets at Brize Norton.
The MP – who then reposted MailOnline’s article about her comments this morning and repeated the claim – was suspended as a Labour MP after voting against the Government but is understood to remain a party member.
In fresh chaos for Sir Keir Starmer, the 31-year-old Corbynista politician said in a statement posted on X that she was ‘resigning from the Labour Party’
Last month, Labour was urged to expel firebrand MP Ms Sultana for continuing to back Palestine Action, even as it is being prohibited as an illegal terrorist organisation
She posted on X that ‘we are all Palestine Action’ after the Home Office said it would proscribe the group behind the attack on RAF jets at Brize Norton
Former adviser on political violence Lord Walney told the Daily Mail: ‘An MP expressing defiant support for an organisation about to be proscribed as terrorists in the UK is incredibly serious.
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‘Ms Sultana is still bound by the Labour Party’s code of conduct, even while she is suspended, so it is about time the party formally expels her, particularly given Palestine Action’s record of violence and intimidation of workers.’
The MP for Coventry South now sits as an Independent following her suspension from Labour after she voted to back scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
In recent days Birmingham-born Ms Sultana has attended pro-Palestine events, including a gathering in Madrid on Monday called ‘Stop Genocide! Free Palestine’.
She also addressed a crowd following a march in London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign from Russell Square to Whitehall last Saturday – and spoke out against the ban on Palestine Action while appearing on BBC TV the next morning.
But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘Palestine Action use violence, intimidation, and criminal damage to try to achieve their political aims.
‘That is not how we do things in this country. We debate issues and we vote in elections to decide issues – we don’t use violence.
‘These MPs who support PA’s violent methods are advocating mob rule and should hang their heads in shame. Just because you disagree with someone doesn’t give you the right to smash up their property. Mob rule has no place in a civilised country.’
Labour’s share of the vote would drop from its current 23 per cent to 20 per cent – leaving Sir Keir’s party on the same level of support as the Tories, a new poll showed
A survey by More in Common showed, if the ex-Labour leader were to front a new party, it would be backed by one in 10 voters
Labour MP David Taylor, for Hemel Hempstead, told the Jewish Chronicle that Ms Sultana should have her membership of the party rescinded.
He said: ‘Zarah Sultana is not a Labour MP. I am not aware of any plans to change this. The whips and party are best placed to oversee any change to this fact.
‘As a backbench MP, it is my view that Ms Sultana embodies the very worst of politics. If it were up to me her party membership card would be rescinded.’
Another Labour MP, Neil Coyle, told the publication: ‘We are proscribing Palestine Action, so she is clearly seeking attention and not seeking the return of the whip.’
It comes after a poll last week found that a new Left-wing party led by Mr Corbyn would attract 10 per cent of voters and pose a fresh challenge for Sir Keir Starmer.
The survey by More in Common showed, if the ex-Labour leader were to front a new party, it would be backed by one in 10 voters.
At the same time, Labour‘s share of the vote would drop from its current 23 per cent to 20 per cent – leaving Sir Keir’s party on the same level of support as the Tories.
In a further split on the Left of British politics, the Greens would drop from 9 per cent to 5 per cent if Mr Corbyn took the helm of a new party.
Ms Sultana posted on social media last month that ‘we are all Palestine Action’
And the former Labout MP also reposted MailOnline’s article about her comments and repeated the claim
MPs last night backed the Government’s move to ban direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, despite claims by Mr Corbyn that it would have a ‘chilling effect’ on protest.
Legislation passed in the Commons on Wednesday, as MPs voted 385 to 26, majority 359 in favour of proscribing the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The House of Lords passed the Government’s move this adternoon, with the legislation going through without a formal vote after a motion brought by Green Party peer Baroness Jones criticising the proscription was defeated by 144 votes to 16.
If approved, it would become a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison to be a member of the direct action group or to support it.
Mr Corbyn said: ‘Surely we should be looking at the issue that Palestine Action are concerned about, and the supply of weapons from this country to Israel, which has made all this possible. If this order goes through today, it will have a chilling effect on protests.’
Ms Sultana has opposed moves to proscribe Palestine Action, speaking against the plans while appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg last month.
She said on the programme: ‘What I’m worried about is what the Government is announcing around proscribing Palestine Action. What happened at that RAF base was two aircraft vehicles being damaged. No single life harmed. No one injured.’
Ms Sultana added: ‘What activists, protesters, politicians like myself have been trying to highlight is UK complicity through surveillance, through selling of arms and what we see with proscribing a group is a dangerous escalation in terms of the crackdown on the right to protest.’
Ms Sultana pictured after a march by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London last month
Ms Sultana addresses pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside Downing Street in May 2024
In response to Ms Sultana’s claim that ‘we are all Palestine Action’, Labour MP Mike Tapp replied: ‘No we are not!’
Speaking in May, Ms Sultana accused Sir Keir Starmer’s Government of being ‘complicit’ in a ‘campaign of collective punishment waged with impunity’.
She told Al Jazeera at the time: ‘Families have been obliterated, entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, and essential services like food, water and electricity deliberately targeted.
‘This is not a tragic accident of war. It is the predictable result of a campaign of collective punishment waged with impunity … The UK’s failure to act is not just a moral disgrace – it is a political choice.’
