Zarah Sultana says she is quitting Labour to start party with Corbyn

Ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana has announced she is resigning from the party, saying she will be founding a new party with her former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Sultana, the Coventry South MP stripped of the Labour whip last year for backing a move to scrap the two-child benefit cap, said the new party would be formed with other independent MPs and activists, aiming to challenge a "broken" Westminster system.

Corbyn has been contacted but has not confirmed his involvement to the BBC.

However, last night he had hinted he may form a new party, telling ITV's Peston "there is a thirst for an alternative" and that a "grouping will come together".

In a social media post, Sultana said the government is "an active participant in genocide" in Gaza - and highlighted growing poverty, the government's position on welfare, and the cost of living as reasons for establishing her new party.

"Labour has completely failed to improve people's lives. And across the political establishment, from Farage to Starmer, they smear people of conscience trying to stop a genocide in Gaza as terrorists.

"But the truth is clear: this government is an active participant in genocide. And the British people oppose it."

Israel has strenuously denied accusations it is committing genocide or genocidal acts in Gaza.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has described the situation in Gaza as "appalling and intolerable" and repeatedly called for a ceasefire, as well as the release of hostages.

But some MPs want him to go further and describe the situation in Gaza as a genocide, claims currently being examined by the International Court of Justice.

Sultana also referenced the government's welfare bill that passed this week, adding: "The government wants to make disabled people suffer; they just can't decide how much."

"We're not an island of strangers," she says, referencing a speech given by the prime minister in May about immigration, which he has since said he regrets. And she says at the next election, "the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism".

Asked for a response to her resignation and comments, a Labour Party spokesperson said: "In just 12 months, this Labour government has boosted wages, delivered an extra four million NHS appointments, opened 750 free breakfast clubs, secured three trade deals and four interest rate cuts lowering mortgage payments for millions.

"Only Labour can deliver the change needed to renew Britain."

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News that Sultana had "always taken a very different view" from the Labour government on a range of issues.

Cooper rejected the Coventry South MP's accusation that Labour was failing to improve people's lives.

She cited falling waiting times in the NHS, the announcement of additional neighbourhood police officers, extending free school meals and strengthening renters' rights as areas where the government was acting.

"These are real changes (that) have a real impact on people's lives," Cooper said.

Alastair Campbell, the former director of communications under Prime Minister Tony Blair, told the BBC he would not underestimate "how much the government's handling of Gaza has really played into this sense of what is Labour about?".

He said: "There feels to me to be a gap between the scale of the challenges facing the country as the public feel them, and the sorts of policy responses coming forward."

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: "I think this speaks to how much division there is within the Labour Party.

"They have a lot of people who are really student politicians, they are campaigners who don't know how to govern."

Sultana was elected as a Labour MP at the 2024 general election but was suspended not long after, and has since sat in the Commons as an independent.

She was suspended with seven other Labour MPs, including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, for defying the government over its two-child benefit cap.

Four of the rebels have since returned to Labour, but Sultana and McDonnell remain independents.

Despite her suspension, she had remained a member of the Labour Party.

Responding to Sultana's announcement, McDonnell posted on social media: "I am dreadfully sorry to lose Zarah from the Labour Party.

"The people running Labour at the moment need to ask themselves why a young, articulate, talented, extremely dedicated socialist feels she now has no home in the Labour Party and has to leave."

The BBC understands McDonnell will not be joining the new party.

Labour MP Kim Johnson, who sits on the left of the party, voted alongside Sultana to oppose the government on its welfare bill and its decision to ban the Palestine Action group.

She said it was "sad that the party is losing a young and passionate politician" but added that she was committed to remaining in Labour.

Ian Byrne, another Labour MP from the same wing of the party and a friend of Sultana's, also said he would not be leaving "any time soon".

However, he said it was "worrying" the party was losing "someone of Zarah's talent".

He said she was "a woman of integrity" who had been the target of "appalling comments" from other Labour MPs, some of whom he said "aren't fit to lace their own boots".

Last year, Corbyn united with four other MPs elected as independents to establish an alliance in the House of Commons.

All five of the group beat Labour candidates in July's election with their pro-Palestinian stance in constituencies with large Muslim populations.

Speaking to ITV's Peston programme, he said he and fellow pro-Gaza independents would "come together" and "there will be an alternative".

He said it would be based on "peace rather than war".

His alliance includes MPs Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, and Iqbal Mohamed.

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