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“Labour is dead” after failing to deliver for working people, Zarah Sultana said as she urged supporters of a new leftwing party she is creating with Jeremy Corbyn to be patient and “watch this space”.
Sultana, the independent MP for Coventry South who quit Labour after losing the whip for backing a move to scrap the two-child benefit cap, is co-leader of a nascent party with Jeremy Corbyn.
She was speaking at the weekend in Newcastle at the conference of a separate but like-minded leftwing party founded by the former Labour North of Tyne mayor, Jamie Driscoll, who quit the party when he has blocked from standing as its candidate in the north-east mayoralty election.
It was a packed house of about 300 people in the Great Hall meeting room of Newcastle’s Discovery Museum. The gathering shines a light on how Labour has to look over its left shoulder, as much as its right, as it navigates the changing political landscape with confidence in established, mainstream parties on the decline.
Sultana said more than 750,000 people had registered their interest in the new party but acknowledged frustration at how long it was taking to get it formally launched. In lieu of an agreed name it is being called “Your party” and no date for a promised “mid-autumn” conference has been announced.
“Watch this space,” Sultana told the Guardian. “I am just as desperate to get this going but it will take time to make sure democracy is at the heart of it. It needs to be reflective of the movement, it can’t just be MP-led.”
Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Greens, has said he is open to working with Your party, although he has distanced himself from the suggestion of an electoral pact.
Sultana said she got on “really well” with Polanski, adding: “The Labour party has moved to the right. You’ve already got Reform and you’ve got the Conservatives. People are desperate for a leftwing alternative that is not beholden to the interests of the billionaires and the super rich.
“Where we have interests that align we will work with the Greens, but it has to be done in a democratic way and I’m sure that’s what Green members will want of their leadership as well.”
In her speech she described Labour as a “dead party” that had failed to deliver but said she had no interest in building a “Labour party 2.0” or creating a party which was just about winning elections.
Problems are “too big for tinkering around the edges”, she said. “They demand bolder action and better power.”
At the meeting backers of Driscoll’s Majority party wanted to know what the relationship with the Corbyn-Sultana party will be.
It will be “whatever the members of Majority want and whatever the members of Your party want,” said Sultana. “Obviously it’s important that Majority remains as a distinct organisation that is able to choose the path it takes forward.”
There will be links, though, given the similar messaging. Driscoll himself is listed as one of three directors of a company created to act as data controller for donation processing to Your party.
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He is campaigning to take control of Newcastle city council next year with a progressive alliance that he hopes will include independents and Greens.
“I’m quite happy to take on Nigel Farage and give him a kicking,” he said. “He’s not going to win in this city, we’ll make sure of that. Reform is a glass cannon at the moment, they’re producing all sorts of stuff and the Labour party is running away. We’re not going anywhere, we’ll stand and fight.”
The gathering in Newcastle came on what has been one of the most politically frenzied weekends for years.
Sultana said she thought voters had bigger concerns. “Being in parliament for the past six years you get used to reshuffles, people resigning and I find that a lot of that Westminster drama entertains lobby journalists and politicians in SW1 but ordinary people in Coventry and Newcastle and across the country are more worried about the bills at the end of the month.
“They’re worried about the cost of living and they need politicians and political parties to centre their interests rather than the interests of the super rich, lobbyists, corporates, oil and gas.
“In particular we have a Labour government that was elected on this promise of change and instead in the past year we’ve seen cuts to winter fuel, we’ve seen cuts to disability benefits, we’ve seen a Labour government sell more arms to Israel than the previous Tory government and is more complicit in genocide than a Conservative government. Those are the issues that people care about.”
