Word ON ROAD: Finally a bit hope in British politics?
Uniting the left and convincing the right. What will it take for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's new party to win?
Last week, on July 24, Jeremy Corbyn confirmed he would be establishing a new political party with fellow former Labour MP Zarah Sultana. As I am writing today (July 30), the provisionally called ‘Your Party’ has amassed an astonishing 600,000 members, averaging roughly 500 sign-ups per minute since its official announcement. Grounded in “unapologetically socialist” politics, the new alliance sets out to tackle a “rigged” system by taking on the “rich and powerful”.
Its proposed policies include: “taxing the very richest in our society", "bringing energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership”, “investing in a massive council-house building programme”, “standing up to fossil fuel giants”, defending “the right to protest against genocide” and demanding an “end to all arms sales to Israel".
The news comes in the face of a surge in popularity for Nigel Farage's far-right and racist Reform UK, which (over the past year) has shockingly become the unofficial opposition to Labour, with some polls even showing it would win a majority if a general election were held this year.
In comparison to ‘Your Party’s’ 600,000, Reform UK currently has 230,000 members and the Labour Party (the last time they made public) had 309,000. While these figures are not necessarily comparable (Reform and Labour members are paying), the speed at which Corbyn and Sultana’s party has garnered support is certainly something to write home about and, for the first time in a very, very long time, I feel slightly hopeful about politics.
Hopefulness when it comes to politics is not something that people of my generation are particularly used to. While older generations may have once felt at least somewhat optimistic in the Labour Party, I have seen very little from them that gives me confidence. I was 15 when Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, after which I witnessed the subsequent smear campaign and tactical undermining of his power by his MPs (excellently exposed in Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files), and the party’s increasing shift to the right.
In the time since Labour came to power last year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has failed to scrap the Conservative’s cruel two-child benefit cap, attempted to take support away from disabled people, clamped down on political protest, referenced Encoh Powell’s racist ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, given his ‘respect’ to Donald Trump, and, most crucially, upheld continued military and political support to a country enacting war crimes and a genocide. It is perhaps on this last point that Starmer has lost most support amongst the left, with Sultana herself stating that “the government is an active participant in genocide” when she announced her resignation in July.
“Even for the millions who have faithfully voted Labour for decades, despite all the party’s flaws, compromises and defeats, Starmer’s premiership is turning out to be extremely, perhaps uniquely, difficult to believe in. The scale of his majority threatens to be matched by the scale of disillusionment,” writes Andy Beckett for The Guardian.
And if Starmer thought pandering to the right through hardline anti-immigration rhetoric and centrist policies would win him support over there, he would be disastrously wrong. It has only pushed them further to the right, with support for Reform UK growing, and political divisions amongst the British public increasing.
But, a study conducted by Merlin Strategy between 25 and 27 July this week, found that there might be one thing uniting these two ends of the spectrum: they both prefer Corbyn to Starmer. A poll of 2,000 adults found that Reform voters believe Corbyn better understands people like them and is braver, more honest and more principled than the Prime Minister. Revealingly, 69% of Reform voters felt Corbyn represented change more than Starmer did and 70% felt that Corbyn would make more radical decisions – a clear sign of the nation’s collective desire for something other than what we have now, and of Starmer’s failure to woo racist, far-right voters.
In response to the poll, Corbyn told Novara Media: “People have lost faith in a political system that shuts them out of the decisions that affect their daily lives. The great dividers want you to think that migrants and minorities are responsible for the problems in our society. They’re not. Those problems are caused by a rigged economic system that protects the interests of billionaires and corporations.”
While it is impossible to find any understanding for the people who decided to riot outside an asylum hotel last week (and I am not suggesting you should), there is a degree to which we must think about some of the reasons that have led them there – aside from straight up racism – such as high levels of unemployment, inequality and a collapsing welfare system. Whether Corbyn and Sultana can show people the real cause of their issues and muster up the votes that they need, is yet to be seen.
Our Head of Culture, Jesse Bernard, has doubts. “In hindsight, a lot of the support Corbyn gained during the GE of 2019 was largely built in an online echo chamber. Those voters have already been won over, and I’m not sure this time I’d feel confident if the campaign were largely built online. I’d just turned 30 when it took place, so I guess I could call myself young but many of us had bought into Corbyn’s policies long before the election; we weren’t the ones that needed convincing. I still believe in most of his policies but I just hope he does things differently this time around because we all thought this Labour government would be better than the last.”
Polling has suggested that the new party could gain about 10% of the vote, likely taking votes away from Labour and the Greens (who stand for very similar policies, only with a greater emphasis on climate justice over economic justice, to put it very, very simply). There have already been calls for a ‘Your Party’-Green party coalition, with some suggesting a concerted effort from the left will be the only path to success.
“The shape of the new left party is critical. Its most suitable form would be a broad democratic front of the left, incorporating everyone from the plethora of independents to a refurbished eco-socialist Green party,” think-tank president and author Joe Guinan told Novara Media. While journalist Abi Wilkinson agreed: “To take on Labour and Reform, the left must find a way to work together.” (It's not an unrealistic call as Green party leadership candidate Zack Polanski has said he would be willing to cooperate with a new left-wing party if he were elected).
‘Your Party’ will host a founding conference in mid-Autumn. I’m not expecting anything drastic to change in the next few years, let’s be realistic. But after a particularly depressing and disillusioning two years of politics, it’s nice to finally think there might be something on the horizon to look forward to.