Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
JEREMY CORBYN vowed “this is just the beginning” today after half a million people signed up to his new political party in three days amid a surge in support for the former Labour leader among 18-24 year-olds.
Mr Corbyn, who launched the new left party with fellow ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana on Thursday, said: “For too long, people have been denied a real political choice. Not anymore.
“Half a million people have already signed up, but this is just the beginning. We are an unstoppable movement for equality, democracy and peace — and we are never, ever going away.”
The half-a-million mark was reached on Sunday and is expected to continue to climb.
It is already well over the Labour Party’s reportedly “haemorrhaging” latest membership figures, which stood at 309,000 in February.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.Vote Labour for Genocide.
[Keir Starmer] … faces backlash for continuing to enable the genocide in Gaza
Maysara Adwan (left) mourns as she holds the body of her 11-year-old son, Qais, who was killed by an Israeli air strike on a school in Gaza that has been used as a shelter, during his burial at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, July 25, 2025
… KEIR STARMER faced a backlash today for spouting empty words while continuing to enable the genocide in Gaza.
The Prime Minister, who is yet to enforce a full arms embargo on Israel, released a statement calling the suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza “unspeakable and indefensible.”
He announced plans to hold an emergency call with Germany and France to discuss “what we can do urgently to stop the killing.”
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, who recently tabled a public inquiry into Britain’s role in Gaza, responded on X: “Empty words cannot hide the truth: your government is complicit in genocide.”
On Wednesday, the government informed Mr Corbyn that the inquiry would be “unnecessary” and that it would be opposed.
The letter from the Foreign Office came just a day after Foreign Secretary David Lammy publicly stated he was “appalled” and “sickened” by Israel’s actions.
When pressed on BBC Radio 4 about his limited response, Mr Lammy deflected criticism by praising his own “good record” — citing the restoration of funding to aid agency UNRWA, a review of Britain’s “bilateral roadmap,” and a partial arms embargo.
The embargo, enforced in September, suspended 30 out of 350 arms exports.
But an analysis of Israeli import data by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International and Workers for a Free Palestine found that Britain still exported 8,630 “munitions of war” to Israel after it came into force.
The Ministry of Defence admitted last month that is it training what it called a “limited number” of IDF personnel.
A Stop the War spokeswoman said: “Keir Starmer and David Lammy have been defending and enabling the indefensible for over 20 months.
“They are complicit in the genocide of our age. The blood of thousands of Palestinian children runs all the way to the door of Number 10.
“These are yet more empty words, entirely lacking in any commitment to anything that might help end the suffering of the people of Gaza.”
Genocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Former Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn M.P. (left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
Corbyn and Sultana commit to launching new socialist party
JEREMY CORBYN and Zarah Sultana have reaffirmed their intention to launch a new political party of the socialist left to challenge a system rigged against working people.
The two former Labour MPs issued a joint statement today committing to the new party after three weeks of sometimes tense and challenging discussions since Ms Sultana quit the Labour Party.
They pledged the creation of “a new kind of political party — one that belongs to you” and looked ahead to a founding conference at which members would “decide the party’s direction, the model of leadership and the policies that are needed to transform society.”
The founding process will also determine the name of the new party. It is understood that the process will be overseen by a working group to be established by the Independent Alliance of MPs, of which Corbyn and Sultana are both members.
Polling shows that the party will pose a serious threat to Labour, with one survey putting the two neck-and-neck on 15 per cent.
In alliance with the Greens, currently in the midst of their own leadership contest, it could overhaul Labour as the main electoral expression of the left in British politics.
…
“The system is rigged when the government says there is no money for the poor, but billions for war. We cannot accept these injustices, and neither should you.”
The statement continued: “We will only fix the crises in our society with a mass redistribution of wealth and power. That means taxing the very richest in our society.
“That means an NHS free from privatisation and bringing energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership,” it added, and “investing in a massive council-house building programme” — recalling some of the most popular policies of Labour under Corbyn.
The Corbyn-Sultana statement also takes aim at “the government’s complicity in crimes against humanity. Now, more than ever, we must defend the right to protest against genocide.
“That is why we will keep demanding an end to all arms sales to Israel and for the only path to peace — a free and independent Palestine.
“The great dividers want you to think that the problems in our society are caused by migrants or refugees. They’re not. They are caused by an economic system that protects the interests of corporations and billionaires.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer chases Nigel Farage’s racist bigot vote.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in Downing Street, London, on his first official visit to Britain, July 17, 2025
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Just 12 per cent of the public approve of the government’s record, a historic low. Current polling shows the great majority of Labour MPs losing their seats at the next election, either to Reform, or to the new left party struggling to be born, or in Scotland and Wales to nationalist parties.
Certainly, at present it is as easy to see the suspended four — and the already-whipless John McDonnell and Apsana Begum who rebelled a year ago against the two-child benefit cap — securing re-election as independents than as candidates of the Starmer regime.
It is certainly hard to see this move breaking resistance to the new austerity agenda going forward. Only successful leaders can hope to get away with this sort of crackdown.
So this latest exercise in authoritarianism speaks only to Starmer’s loss of capacity to advance his right-wing agenda, as well as to his consigliere Morgan McSweeney’s blinkered view that whatever the problem is the answer lies in attacking the left.
But it is also a challenge to the Labour left. Over the last five years it has consistently failed to find the means to arrest the Starmer-McSweeney purge of the left, often for want of the simple virtue of sticking together when under attack.
The response to the latest suspensions has been robust, in words at least. The left has shown it can inflict defeats on the government, reversing specific policy proposals.
But it is now beyond obvious that only a fighting plan to actually oust Starmer himself has any prospect of reversing Labour’s dismal prospects in time to save the next election. They should take every opportunity — and even create them — to express no-confidence in this government of austerity, war and authoritarianism.
Failure to do so will certainly turbocharge the case for the new socialist party being promoted by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. The appeal of that venture rests in part on the perception that Labour is a lost cause.
Starmer’s latest sanctions against dissent tend to make that case. He has flung down the gauntlet — the left in the PLP, the affiliated unions and the membership must pick it up.
Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so muchKeir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
Maysara Adwan (left) mourns as she holds the body of her 11-year-old son, Qais, who was killed by an Israeli air strike on a school in Gaza that has been used as a shelter, during his burial at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, July 25, 2025
