Corbyn's plot to fight Starmer next May

Jeremy Corbyn’s new hard-Left party will be set up in time to fight Labour at next May’s local elections – piling further pressure on Sir Keir Starmer.

Daily Telegraph 

Wednesday July 23 2025

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Afternoon!

Jeremy Corbyn’s new hard-Left party will be set up in time to fight Labour at next May’s local elections – piling further pressure on Sir Keir Starmer.

Corbyn’s vision: Six policy priorities, taking on Reform and fighting the locals

It was fitting that the first major meeting about Mr Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party was hosted by Dave Nellist – a fellow firebrand who was also expelled as a Labour MP by a more moderate leader.

Mr Corbyn spoke for a fairly short time on the Zoom call, which was also live streamed on Facebook, but what he had to say was significant.

Declaring the manifestos he fought with during the 2017 and 2019 general elections were “very good” but “not quite perfect”, the former Labour leader confirmed the new party will play all the greatest Corbynite hits.

“The politics of the party... It must be about peace, it must be about redistribution, it must be about workers’ rights, it must be about environmental sustainability, it must be about public ownership, and investment in housing,” he said.

Mr Corbyn went on to acknowledge his party is not the only insurgent force in town and vowed to “fight back” against Reform UK, accusing its MPs of harbouring views that are “usually obnoxious and usually quite obscene”.

But his most consequential remarks were those in which he confirmed a new party will be up and running in time to add to a world of pain for Sir Keir and Labour at the local elections next May, which are already being viewed in Westminster as a key moment for the Prime Minister.

Mr Corbyn said: “I’m hoping we can get through this process very, very quickly so we can do an establishment and a launch very, very quickly. So well in advance of next year’s local elections we will have in place an organisation that supports local campaigns, supports independents in their campaigns and comes together under if you like a common badge, common emblem, common symbol, common umbrella.”

Out of the 16 borough councils that will be re-elected in full next May, 14 are currently Labour-held. The governing party is also in charge of 21 out of 32 boroughs in London. But Labour’s popularity has been in freefall during its first year in power, and the presence of a Corbyn-backed party, outflanking it to the Left on welfare, tax and spend and Gaza, risks turning what already looks like a precarious set of elections for Sir Keir into a political disaster.

Sultana: We are aiming for at least a quarter of the vote

Ms Sultana spoke for even less time than Mr Corbyn but was equally bullish about what the new Left-wing party could achieve.

Pointing to polling by More in Common that showed 10 per cent of voters would be minded to back a party led by Mr Corbyn, Ms Sultana told activists: “We have to acknowledge the polls which are great at looking at this new Left-wing party. But 10 to 15 per cent in the polls has to be a floor, not a ceiling.

“We have to be ambitious and aim for 20 to 25 per cent and beyond. All of us will agree on one thing at least – that the Labour Party is dead and it’s time for a mass movement that will take on the billionaire class and the parties that represent them.”

Luke Tryl, the UK director of More in Common, says voters are now so disconnected from their traditional loyalties that a surge for Ms Sultana and Mr Corbyn cannot be ruled out.

He tells me: “It is entirely possible that politics is so volatile... And we have seen parties of the populist Left do well, obviously a few years ago now with Syriza in Greece and then with Podemos in Spain and support for Melenchon in France.

“But the caveat I would give is: are they going to have mainstream appeal or, if you look at our seven segments, are they going to limit themselves to that Progressive Activist segment? Because lots of people on the Left want to improve institutions rather than tearing them down necessarily. And does it just go a bit far and spook the horses?

“The bigger consequence of [the new party] is that they split the Left, and they almost end up playing the same role that Reform played for the Tories in the 2024 election. If you look at our polling they actually take a chunk from the Greens and they take some more from Labour as well, which clearly makes it easier for parties of the Right.

“I guess the threat for Labour will be, is the threat of prime minister Farage enough to squash a smaller party for the Left, can they make the argument that these guys are worse?

That’s what Sunak couldn’t do with Reform – traditional Tories didn’t care, they just wanted to punish him and they voted for Reform even though it would harm Starmer. The threat of Farage has more potency on the Left, but is it enough? Losing a small vote from Labour can cost them quite a lot of seats.”