The MP Zarah Sultana has said she hopes her new political party will ultimately replace Labour as she revealed she was committed to winning power.
Sultana left the Labour party in July to form the new group, operating under the temporary name Your Party.
Asked by Nick Robinson on his BBC podcast Political Thinking if she aimed with her new party to replace Labour, she said: “That’s the vision. We are the party of the left, and we have to build. And we’re starting from very humble beginnings. But this isn’t a three-, four-year project. This is a 10-20-30-40-year project.”
She agreed the new party was not just one of protest. “I’m in politics because of a desire to change people’s lives for the better and that means winning state power,” she said.
“That means actually running government. That means nationalising. That means building council homes, that means providing people with the good, secure jobs that they deserve.
“All of those things mean winning power, and that’s what I’m committed to, but that will take building a party, organising, knocking on millions of doors, and articulating our politics.”
Your Party has suffered a turbulent start, hit by rows over leadership, funds and its name, which will be permanently settled at a conference next month.
Most recently, it emerged this week that the party was preparing legal action against a group of its own founders after a final deadline to hand over at least £800,000 in donations passed without payment.
In September, relations between Sultana and the party’s fellow founder, Jeremy Corbyn, hit a low with Sultana threatening to hire defamation lawyers after a row over the launch of a paid membership system. The pair later said they had reconciled and likened themselves to the notoriously volatile Gallagher brothers.
Robinson asked Sultana if she thought Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, which is polling ahead of Labour, is a fascist.
“Well, I think the way that him and his colleagues have behaved in parliament, where they are voting against trade union rights, where they are committed to peddle racism to attack our rights, I do think he has all the features of a fascist politician, and I think it’s important that we stop a fascist Reform government,” she said.
“He’s a danger,” she added.
In response, a Reform UK spokesperson told the podcast Sultana “should go back to school or buy herself a dictionary”.
