Diane Abbott: Why I won't be joining Jeremy Corbyn's new political party

DIANE Abbott has confirmed she will not join Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Thursday, the Hackney North MP said she had “always been in the Labour Party” and that she was “probably too old to change”.

Abbott called the current state of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer a “tricky state of play”, adding that she “wouldn’t have thought” the party would have been cutting winter fuel payments for elderly citizens and benefits for disabled people once it was back in government.

She said the current first past the post voting system led her to discourage Corbyn from forming the temporarily-named Your Party.

Members will name the party properly at a conference later this year.

“If I’m honest, there were people around Jeremy encouraging him to set up a new party and I told him not to”, she said.

“It’s very difficult under first past the post for a new party to absolutely win. If it wasn’t first past the post, then you could see how a new party could come through.”

Abbott went on to say that she understood why Corbyn and Sultana decided to form a new party following the pair’s exit from the party, with Corbyn having been an independent MP since 2020 and Sultana abruptly quitting Labour in July.

(Image: PA) She said she believes the new party will do “a lot better than people think”, joking that many people – including those who are “not necessarily left-wing” – were “slightly disappointed” in the direction Labour have headed since coming to power in 2024.

Abbott continuously referenced a friend who had warned her not to take swipes at Starmer during the event, which was a celebration of the release of her memoir A Lifetime of Making a Difference.

Regardless, she went on to criticise the UK’s involvement in the genocide in Palestine, alluding to the many statements government officials have published condemning Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombardment of the enclave – despite continuing to sell parts of F-35 fighter jets to Israel and sending spy planes over Gaza.

“We are the country which had the Palestinian mandate between wars. There is no other European party that has the history, that has the legacy, that has the role in the Middle East as Britain has.

“That the British Prime Minister has been so timid about speaking out against Gaza – I think that is really shameful.”