Zarah Sultana launches fundraising drive for new leftwing party

Zarah Sultana has launched a fundraising drive and supporter sign-up page under her own name as she pushed on with plans for the formation of a new leftwing party.

The Coventry South MP, who announced last Thursday that she would be co-leading the new party with Jeremy Corbyn, used the platform ActionNetwork to gather supporters. The landing page has so far recorded more than 64,000 “actions taken”.

But the move has caused further unease within the emerging left alliance, with organisers fearing control over donations and data might become concentrated within Sultana’s camp.

After Sultana announced her co-leadership plan, Corbyn made a separate statement noting “discussions were ongoing”. Concerns were fuelled by the fact that the movement lacked wider solid infrastructure, with some organisers fearing Sultana might retain ownership of the data and donations in the absence of them.

The announcement being made without an agreement was described as “childlike behaviour” by a small few involved in the organisation of the nascent party.

But some concerns appear to have been allayed after a week of silence and off-stage manoeuvring – culminating in an apparent agreement to fold all assets into the new party’s collective structure.

Those close to the talks now say the issue is resolved, with one insisting it was “obvious” that was always going to be the case. But Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, which has more than 50,000 subscribers, will remain a separate entity and is not expected to support the broader movement.

One ally said the backlash to Sultana’s launch had been overblown and noted the scale of support she had already generated.

The incremental move towards the formation of a new leftwing challenger party came after a tense week of briefings and leaked messages, which appeared to show a lack of common ground between the two camps.

The communications gap has been compounded by the fact that Sultana and Corbyn are abroad with Corbyn in Colombia for Progressive International events, and Sultana in Bosnia for the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.

While Sultana’s decision to push ahead with setting up fundraising infrastructure had triggered jitters, organisers believe if mailing lists and donation flows from her network and the Peace and Justice Project were combined, they could form the foundation of one of the largest left-aligned political infrastructures in Europe.

There has already been several weeks of informal organising between broad Labour-left figures, independents, and grassroots groups who formed a part of an early memorandum of understanding.

Supporters point to another broader context: more than 300,000 people are believed to have left the Labour party in recent years, many after Keir Starmer’s withdrawal of the whip from Corbyn and the marginalisation of leftwing MPs. Several councillors and grassroots organisers involved in the new party effort have also been expelled or deselected under new party rules.

The new party’s process document is expected to be published in the coming days and potentially resolve tensions between multiple grassroots formations. One source involved described the next steps as an attempt to “find a common position that can get the ship sailing again”.

But the path ahead remains uncertain. “There are a lot of moving parts, and a lot of egos,” one organiser said. “The potential is enormous, but so is the risk of collapse. We’ve seen it before across the European left.”