Disaffected Labour MPs could launch new ‘real socialist’ party, with Zarah Sultana potentially at the helm

The stability of Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership has been challenged, as fears grow that a number of disaffected Labour MPs will launch a new ‘real socialist’ party as soon as this autumn.

In a move to combat what many are calling Starmer’s ‘blue Labour Party’, The Mail on Sunday has reported that a group of disaffected Labour backbenchers, who opposed the government’s welfare reforms, have been approached to join a new ‘radical Left’ political movement’.

Led by supporters of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the new party could be set to launch during Labour’s national conference later this year, which would expectedly invoke maximum damage on Starmer’s leadership.

This whole cause is coming together so that by next year’s local elections – long before that I hope – we’re going to have something in pace that is very clear and everyone will want to be part of and support

Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed calls for a ‘new political party’ in May at an event hosted by the People’s Alliance for Change and Equality (PACE) in West Yorkshire, where he said: “This whole cause is coming together so that by next year’s local elections – long before that I hope – we’re going to have something in pace that is very clear and everyone will want to be part of and support”.

For Corbyn, that is: “a strong alternative democratic socialist, left-wing voice that brings people together”.

While it is not clear who would be at the helm of a new ‘real socialist’ party, at the forefront of suggestions is Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana

While it is not clear who would be at the helm of a new ‘real socialist’ party, at the forefront of suggestions is Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana. Sultana, whose constituency covers part of the University of Warwick, is currently suspended from the Labour Party in Westminster after voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

Sultana has also been a vocal critic of the government’s welfare reforms, which have been a source of intra-party turmoil. Last week, 127 Labour backbenchers supported a ‘kill the bill’ style amendment, seeking to block the Prime Minister’s controversial benefit cuts which would have seen the ‘daily living’ element of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) become harder to claim. The rates of Universal Credit would have also been rebalanced.

While initial reports suggested that Starmer was pressing ahead with an early July vote on the proposals, in which Labour MPs who voted against the reforms would have been threatened with losing the party whip, the Prime Minister has since made a U-turn on his plans.

Allies at the side of Starmer are thought to be playing down any threat of an alternative ‘socialist’ party, instead focusing on suggestions that ‘a couple of’ current Labour MPs could defect to the Green Party

Now, only new claimants of PIP will be subject to the stricter eligibility criteria, in a move which seeks to appease potential Labour rebels.

Despite seeming divisions in the party, allies at the side of Starmer are thought to be playing down any threat of an alternative ‘socialist’ party, instead focusing on suggestions that “a couple of” current Labour MPs could defect to the Green Party.