A former Labour MP has said that she will set up a new party with Jeremy Corbyn.
Zarah Sultana – who had the Labour whip suspended last year – said she was resigning from Sir Keir Starmer’s party and would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with the ex-Labour leader.
In a statement posted on X, Ms Sultana, who represents Coventry South, said that the project would also involve “other independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country”.
She said that “Westminster is broken but the real crisis is deeper” and the “two-party system offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises”.
Today, after 14 years, I’m resigning from the Labour Party.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) July 3, 2025
Jeremy Corbyn and I will co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country.
Join us. The time is now.
Sign up here to stay updated: https://t.co/MAwVBrHOzH pic.twitter.com/z91p0CkXW0
She added: “A year ago, I was suspended by the Labour Party for voting to abolish the two-child benefit cap and lift 400,000 children out of poverty.
“I’d do it again. I voted against scrapping winter fuel payments for pensioners. I’d do it again. Now, the Government wants to make disabled people suffer; they just can’t decide how much.”
It comes in the same week as Sir Keir U-turned on plans for welfare reform in the face of a rebellion from Labour backbenchers.
Ms Sultana urged people to “join us”, and also accused the Government of being an “active participant in genocide” in Gaza in her statement.
"That grouping [of Independents] will come together, there will be an alternative"
— Peston (@itvpeston) July 2, 2025
Ex Labour Leader @jeremycorbyn says he is "here to serve the people" as he outlines plans for a new party #Peston pic.twitter.com/xWyl6iSbnm
Referring to the next general election, Ms Sultana said: “In 2029 the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism”.
Ms Sultana was one of seven MPs who had the Labour whip suspended last summer when they supported an amendment to the King’s Speech which related to the two-child benefit cap.
Four of the seven had the whip restored earlier this year but Ms Sultana was not among them.
John McDonnell, another of the suspended MPs who has not had the whip restored, posted on X that he was “dreadfully sorry” to see Ms Sultana quit the 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,” he said.
Mr Corbyn led Labour from 2015 to April 2020, stepping down after the party’s loss at the 2019 general election.
He was suspended from Labour in 2020 after he refused to fully accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings that the party broke equality law when he was in charge, and said antisemitism had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”.
He was blocked from standing for Labour at last year’s general election and expelled in the spring of 2024 after announcing he would stand as an independent candidate in his Islington North constituency, which he won with a majority of more than 7,000.
Last year, Mr Corbyn formed the Independent Alliance with other independent members of the Commons.
Asked on ITV’s Peston programme on Wednesday whether that group could turn into an official party, Mr Corbyn said that they have “worked very hard and very well together” over the last year in Parliament.
He added: “There is a thirst for an alternative view to be put.”
“That grouping will come together, there will be an alternative,” he later said.
Responding to Ms Sultana’s statement, a Labour 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.”
