Zarah Sultana

Zarah Sultana speaks on main stage at Forwards Festival

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https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/zarah-sultana-speaks-on-main-stage-at-forwards-festival

Photo: Khali Ackford

Zarah Sultana made a surprise appearance on the main stage at Forwards, delivering a passionate speech to the crowd before introducing Nia Archives.

The MP for Coventry South resigned from the Labour Party in July in order to co-found a new grassroots party with fellow independent MPs including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Earlier on Sunday, Sultana had taken part in a panel discussion called The Movement Forward: Pissed off with Politics on the Information Stage at the festival on the Downs.

On the main stage, Sultana said: “A lot of people are fed up. I am too. Fed up with being told that this is just how things are. Fed up with being asked to settle for less. Fed up with the idea that the best we can do is manage decline, implement austerity, blame migrants, Muslims and trans people, enable genocide in Gaza, and have fascism growling at the door.

“But here’s the truth: politics is not only what happens in parliament or on the news. Politics is us. It’s here. It’s all of you.

“It’s people deciding they won’t accept the world as it is. It’s people daring to imagine the world as it should be.

“Every great change we’ve ever seen, from rights at work, to votes for women, to the NHS didn’t come from the top down.

“It came because ordinary people stood up and said: we aren’t going to take this anymore.

“And when people come together with that conviction, something powerful happens: hope.

“Not the shallow kind that tells us to just wait and see, but the deep kind that comes when we believe we can build something new, and we start doing it.”

…

Article continues at https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/zarah-sultana-speaks-on-main-stage-at-forwards-festival

Continue ReadingZarah Sultana speaks on main stage at Forwards Festival

One in five Britons would consider voting for a new left-wing party, rising to one in three young people and Labour voters

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https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/one-five-britons-would-consider-voting-new-left-wing-party-rising-one-three-young-people-and-labour

A new Ipsos in the UK poll reveals that the left-wing political party recently founded by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and MP Zarah Sultana could capture a significant segment of the British electorate, particularly among younger voters and those who supported the Labour and Green parties in the 2024 General Election. 

Overall, 20% of British adults say they would be ‘very’ or ‘fairly likely’ to consider voting for a new left-wing party. This figure, however, masks a sharp generational divide. A third (33%) of those aged 16-34 would consider voting for the new party, a figure that drops to 22% among 35-54s and just 9% among those aged 55 and over. 

The potential for this new party to disrupt the existing political landscape is most evident in its appeal to voters of other left-leaning parties. One-third (33%) of those who voted Labour in 2024 and 43% of 2024 Green party voters would consider lending their vote to a Corbyn-Sultana-led party.

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Commenting on the findings, Keiran Pedley, Director of UK Politics at Ipsos said:

These figures show that a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has the potential to shake up British politics. A significant number of younger people are at least prepared to consider voting for it and a majority of those aged under 35 say they would consider voting for some kind of alliance between the new party and the Greens. Clear policies around change, the NHS, poverty and wealth taxes could be popular. Time will tell if the new party can turn this hypothetical appeal into real votes on a significant scale.

Continue ReadingOne in five Britons would consider voting for a new left-wing party, rising to one in three young people and Labour voters

‘A new kind of political party’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-kind-political-party

 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.

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“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.

…

See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-kind-political-party

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
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 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.
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.
Continue Reading‘A new kind of political party’

Morning Star Editorial: Purge of dissenting MPs is a sign of Starmer’s weakness

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/purge-dissenting-mps-sign-starmers-weakness

 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.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/purge-dissenting-mps-sign-starmers-weakness

Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Purge of dissenting MPs is a sign of Starmer’s weakness

Starmer plunges Labour into crisis as he axes rebel MPs

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-plunges-labour-crisis-he-axes-rebel-mps

 Prime Minister Keir Starmer departs 10 Downing Street, London, to attend Prime Minister’s Questions at the Houses of Parliament, July 16, 2025

… KEIR STARMER suspended four left Labour MPs from the party whip last night in a desperate attempt to restore his floundering and diminished authority.

Brian Leishman, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Rachael Maskell and Chris Hinchcliffe will now sit as independent MPs.

Left MP Zarah Sultana, commenting to the Star, told the MPs to “come and join us” in the new socialist party she has committed to launching with Jeremy Corbyn after resigning from Labour two weeks ago.

The MPs have been sanctioned by the Starmer regime because of alleged “persistent rebelliousness”. All voted against the government’s disability benefit cuts, along with a large number of other backbenchers.

More suspensions may follow as Sir Keir seeks to recover from a series of enforced U-turns as his “make the poor pay for war” political strategy unravels.

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Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Continue ReadingStarmer plunges Labour into crisis as he axes rebel MPs