THE Scottish wing of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party has issued a clarification on its independence stance.
Jim Monaghan is a member of the steering group Collective Scotland which is tasked with setting up the as-yet-unnamed party north of the Border and previously told The National it would be open to “candidates and members” on both sides of the constitutional debate.
He has now clarified the Corbyn-Sultana project’s stance, saying: “We’re so far away now from having a position on that.”
He added: “When that party launches, which I’m expecting to be later this month, will be the start of us getting serious in Scotland and finding out who the members are when they join and trying to get, we’re looking at the end of August before we get any real meeting of what will be the new party in Scotland and until then, we don’t really have a position other than we are happy to take part in the coalition, electoral alliance talks in Scotland on that basis, on the basis of supporting a referendum.”
Monaghan (above) said that in his initial interview with The National, he had been setting out the constitutional stance of another organisation he is involved with, the Left Alternative.
This is a coalition of small, left-wing parties in Scotland including the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (Tusc).
It will also be constituted as a party for the 2026 Holyrood elections, according to Monaghan.
He said: “It's not really [that] we’re starting two parties.”
There will be the Corbyn-Sultana project which will eventually become a party, he explained, and the Left Alternative coalition.
The latter must be constituted as a political party and registered with the Electoral Commission to contest elections, Monaghan argued.
“The Left Alternative idea is several parties,” he said.
“The Collective as it’s known now, or whatever the new Corbyn party’s called, will be one of several parties who’ll be part of this electoral alliance but they will be a party in their own right as well. Going forward in the future, after the 2026 elections, as to what strategy is taken forward in Scotland after that we’re way, way, miles, we’re not even discussing that.”
He added: “It’s not as if we’re forming two parties; we’re forming a party and our party is going to join an electoral alliance that will have to, by law, register as a party for the election.”
