On 24 July, MP Zarah Sultana, who recently broke with the Labour Party, and Independent Alliance MP and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn announced the formation of a new left-wing party in the United Kingdom. The new party, temporarily called Your Party, which polls suggest could win between 10 and 18% of the vote, has not yet been formally established and does not have a defined programme. It is expected to be launched in September.
The split
Zarah Sultana, along with a group of Labour MPs, voted against laws promoted by Starmer’s Labour Party government that attacked the living conditions of disabled people and popular gains, as well as maintaining political, economic and military support for the genocide being carried out by the Zionist state and the repression of those who oppose it in Britain.
A group of MPs were suspended for opposing the government’s voting orders. Most of them returned to the Labour Party, but Zarah Sultana did not. She announced her break with the party and, in making her resignation public, called for the formation of a new Left Party, announcing an agreement to this effect with Jeremy Corbyn. However, Corbyn’s initial reaction was one of “surprise” at Sultana’s announcement. Only after a couple of days – and seeing the popular reaction in support of Sultana’s statement – did he accept the idea and begin to work publicly on it. Since Corbyn was removed as leader of the Labour Party (2020), the need to form this party has been raised on many occasions, but he refused to respond. Now he appears to be taking that step. NecessityIn their statements, both Sultana and Corbyn question the fact that the Labour Party has become backed by billionaires, criticizing the Labour government’s active support for the genocide in Palestine with the effective shipment of weapons, the repression of the LGTBI+ population and cuts to all types of social assistance. Corbyn points to a “massive redistribution of wealth and power,” while Sultana has gone so far as to say that the 2029 election will be decided between “socialism or barbarism” and that this is why a workers’ party is necessary. Its organizers have launched a signature campaign for those who want to join, and more than 600,000 supporters have signed up in the first five days of the campaign. A shift of this magnitude undoubtedly expresses that the call for a new party has channelled enormous anger towards the Labour government and, at the same time, the need for a political channel that can confront the far-right Reform UK, which is leading the polls.Since Starmer took office as Prime Minister, seven MPs have resigned or been expelled from the Labour Party, some for opposing cuts to social benefits and others for opposing the policy on genocide in Gaza. At the local level, at least 26 councillors from different areas have resigned. It has been reported that Starmer is carrying out a veritable “purge” within the party. In addition, there are beginning to be shifts in sectors of the trade union base, with individual members leaving the Labour Party. Although these resignations are not collective, except for the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU) (food and bakery, with between 15,000 and 20,000 members), which broke with Labour in 2021, many of the unions that historically contributed financially to the Labour Party have stopped doing so. Indeed, Unite, one of the largest trade unions in the United Kingdom with more than 1.2 million workers in heavy manufacturing, transport, construction, health, commerce and telecommunications, stopped making donations and did not contribute to Starner’s 2024 campaign. Its general secretary, Sharon Graham, threatened to resign individually by 2027. However, the most powerful unions, such as Unison (representing state workers and teachers, with 1.3 million members) and GMB, which represents more than 600,000 private sector workers, remain loyal to the Labour Party.In 2023, of the total £21.5 million raised by Labour in 2024, only £5.9 million came from trade unions, while £14.5 million came from individuals and companies, reflecting a significant shift in traditional funding towards corporate or private actors. The formation of this new left-wing party has already brought together important trade union leaders, the Palestine movement, MPs elected outside Labour or who broke with it, and a large part of local left-wing groups, which had also supported Corbyn during his time as Labour leader. The breakdown of the Labour PartyIt is important to bear in mind that the Labour Party was founded in the early 20th century with the aim of “representing workers in Parliament”. Made up mainly of workers, it was quickly taken over by opportunistic pro-bourgeois leaders. Under Labour government, the so-called “Welfare State” was established after the Second World War, and it was also under Labour governments that austerity policies were developed against the labour movement. Historically, it has been made up of the largest trade unions of the working class in the United Kingdom, which are integrated into the Party as unions: Unite the Union, Unison, GMB, Usdaw, CWU (postal union). A powerful working class, such as that of the United Kingdom, integrated into a Labour Party, which through it subordinates its unions to an imperialist state.
This is a hugely significant fact because the Labour Party has historically been the organizer, within the working class, of the imperialist policy of the United Kingdom. To illustrate this role, it may be helpful to recall that during the historic coal miners’ strike in 1984 and 1985, under Margaret Thatcher’s government, the Labour Party took an ambiguous position and did not officially support the fierce struggle against the closure of the mines, which left more than 200,000 miners unemployed. A couple of years earlier, during Malvinas War, the Labour Party supported the Conservative Party’s imperialist military policy against an oppressed country like Argentina, and not a single trade union officially spoke out in support of Argentina’s legitimate anti-colonialist claim to sovereignty. These are just two examples (we could delve into dozens more) that serve to illustrate the historical role played by the Labour Party in containing the working class of the United Kingdom within an imperialist policy, far removed from any kind of class solidarity with the oppressed of the world.
The Labour Party has historically supported imperialist policies of oppression against various countries, such as the Iraq War, the Zionist siege of the Palestinian people, its participation in the NATO intervention and its responsibility for the genocide in Kosovo under Labour Prime Minister Blair in 1998/9. And now it supports NATO in the war in Ukraine.
The shift to the left of these sectors has the important historical particularity of taking place in the context of a deep crisis of global capitalism that is heading towards an escalation of war. It is an expression, at least potentially or of a limited political nature, of a crisis in the co-optation of the English working class into this imperialist war machine.The crisis of the political regime The crisis that the Labour Party is going through is of monumental historical proportions. Starmer took office as prime minister in July 2024, after 14 years of Conservative Party rule, and has been carrying out brutal anti-worker austerity measures, coupled with a policy of fierce repression and persecution of mass demonstrations and all kinds of expressions against the genocide in Palestine. In addition to guaranteeing arms shipments to the genocidal state of Israel, he is promoting a policy of banning organizations that organize solidarity with Palestine. Along with this, the British government is pursuing policies of severe cuts for pensioners and people with disabilities, while increasing military spending. The warmongering efforts being made by the United Kingdom for NATO’s expansionist policy against Russia, to the detriment of the living conditions of the British population, is another great example. The Labour Party is therefore the conduit through which British imperialist policy is being implemented at a time when the capitalist crisis is leading to a third world war.
This set of measures increases the unrest that was already present among the British population. The election that brought Starner to 10 Downing Street is the lowest since 2001. Only 59.7% of the electorate voted in the election. Articles in The Guardian and various pollsters such as IPSOS-MORI (Institute for Public Policy) and Yougov indicate that the areas with the lowest turnout are those with a high presence of young people, renters, ethnic minorities, and the poorest areas.
The low voter turnout reflects a process of profound decomposition of the English political regime, which is now finding expression in the crisis of the Labour Party. But let us remember that the Conservative Party, which had been in power for 14 years, won the 2010 elections, ousting a Labour Party deeply shaken by the economic shock of the 2008 crisis. The United Kingdom entered an economic recession in the last quarter of 2008, GDP fell by 6.3% between early 2008 and mid-2009 (the sharpest decline since World War II), unemployment reached 8% in 2009 and exceeded 20% among young people, and job insecurity increased significantly. Part of the expression of this crisis was the pressure for the Brexit referendum promoted by the Conservative David Cameron in 2016. Although the prime minister himself called for a vote to remain in the European Union, the result was 51.9% in favour of leaving the European Union against 48.1% in favour of remaining. Cameron had to resign after the referendum, and Theresa May took over, seeking to negotiate a “soft” exit from the European Union, seeking to maintain key agreements, but she also had to resign from her post. Boris Johnson then took office in 2019 with the slogan “Get Brexit Done” and the exit took place in early 2020. The “partygate” scandals during the pandemic, which involved the prime minister himself and showed the contempt of a “party-loving” political “caste” for the population, while people suffered the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown and all the economic effects brought about by the pandemic.
For a working-class alternative
This enormous level of decomposition of the political regime in the United Kingdom, which dramatizes the debacle of the global capitalist economy, gave impetus to a strong rise of the far-right group Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, which organizes shock troops to attack immigrants and defends deeply reactionary policies. Farage was the main driving force behind Brexit and has become popular by linking the decline in living conditions of the British working class to migration and European Union policies. He seeks to present himself as a kind of Milei, criticizing the Conservatives for not acting energetically to dismantle the fiscal deficit and attacking ‘welfare’ immigrants who “live off the state and the British population”. Immigrants and sexual minorities are used as scapegoats for the crisis and decline of the British imperialist regime. Ipsos Political Monitor polls in June 2025 show that this group has 34% of the vote. It is interesting to note that the voting intentions of this sector are mainly distributed among the male population over 50, particularly in regions where the vote to leave Brexit was in the majority, such as the North and West Midlands, in addition to the fact that Reform UK is absorbing most of the Conservative Party’s militant base. The current Labour government of Starmer intends to impose the austerity measures that the Conservatives failed to achieve. The as-yet-unfounded party of Corbyn and Sultana is inspiring hundreds of thousands who today seek a real way out of the imminent threat of the rise of the far right. And it ties in with a global trend where we are seeing young people in different countries rising up against their own governments and imperialist policies that attack workers’ rights. One expression of this is the victory of the self-proclaimed socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York, who belongs to the “left” within the imperialist US Democratic Party of Biden and Kamala Harris. But unlike this case and others like it, the formation of this new party formally appears as a break from the left of the ruling bourgeois party.
The debate on the programme of a workers’ party must be deeply democratic for the hundreds of thousands who are today on the streets fighting against the genocide in Palestine and the government’s active support for it, democratic for the thousands who are fighting hand-to-hand with the fascists of Reform UK to defend immigrants. This process of debate should be carried out through a Congress of the rank and file of the trade unions, in the first instance, of neighbourhood groups, of the exploited people’s struggles and of political groups that want to join, electing delegates in a representative manner and mandating programmatic proposals. A broad political/programmatic revolution with the leading intervention of the rank and file.You cannot confront the right wing with half measures. Corbyn has taken ambiguous positions on the imperialist policy of the United Kingdom, denouncing NATO’s expansionist policy regarding the war in Ukraine, but at the same time supporting the previous Minsk Agreements, which establish an imperialist imposition by the Western powers to control Eastern Europe. When he was leader of the Labour Party, he defended the elimination of Trident nuclear submarines (the UK’s nuclear weapons system) but later stated that he would not use them, and finally that the decision to use them would have to be a “collective decision”. This collective decision he refers to is expressed in the Labour Party’s 2017 election manifesto, which includes a commitment to maintain Trident. Corbyn never denounced the Labour Party’s historic role as defender of the interests of an imperialist state like Britain.
This issue is fundamental because it is directly related to the position on war. The only working-class and socialist position is to fight to end the capitalist governments responsible for war and the consequent massacre of peoples, carried out with the aim of imperialist plunder for the domination of territories and resources. In the case of the war in Ukraine, the position of the workers must be to attack the governments of Zelensky and Putin until their defeat. Down with NATO. Down with Zelensky. Down with Putin. War on war. The enemy is within. Russian and Ukrainian workers must fraternize under the united banner of a working-class and socialist solution. It is right to be against the war, but also against the imperialist “peace” which, as demonstrated in the Minsk agreements, serves to rearm the imperialist factions behind the curtain of fraudulent ceasefires and, in turn, to divide Ukraine and deny the national aspirations of its people.
In this sense, although Corbyn has been a defender of the Palestinian cause (this was used by the Labour establishment to purge him and his supporters from the party by exploiting accusations of “anti-Semitism”) and a critic of the genocide they are suffering, he does not offer any profound criticism of the imperialist role of the United Kingdom and the Western powers, but rather presents himself as a defender of “peace and justice” as abstract principles. He defends the two-state policy (which has been a monstrosity in the shadow of which Zionist/imperialist colonialist interventionism has grown) and is critical of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. There can be no real Workers’ Party that does not break with the imperialist position and work openly for fraternization with the workers and exploited of Europe.In the recent past, his position on Brexit was to remain in the EU, as he expressed in a speech in London ahead of the vote: “We, the Labour Party, are overwhelmingly in favour of remaining, because we believe that the European Union has brought investment, jobs and protection for workers, consumers and the environment.” This was a pro-imperialist position, which even led to the loss of traditional Labour support centres to the far right and the Conservatives, electoral disaster and the weakening that allowed his purge of Labour. His position is one of social reform of imperialism, something impossible to reform because imperialism is reactionary in every way. It is necessary to propose an alternative of unity with European workers to stop the war by ending the imperialist regimes that promote it, for the socialist unity of Europe from the North Sea and the Atlantic to Russia, inclusive. Indecision on this issue, and worse, support for a European Union led by imperialist governments, ties the hands of the working class in the United Kingdom in the face of right-wing nationalist demagogy and facilitates the rise of the far right.
A historic opportunity
The need to prepare an electoral alternative for the next local elections in 2026 has been emphasized. This is very important, but the fundamental problem is to intervene in the trade union movement, opposing the trade union bureaucracy that has been in place for decades and represents sectors of the ‘labour aristocracy’ united in support of the anti-working class Labour government. The trade union bureaucracy is the main obstacle to joint action by workers against austerity and war. A couple of years ago, a huge wave of strikes was on the verge of triggering a general strike, the first in a century, but it was blocked and dismantled by this trade union bureaucracy and the bourgeois Labour leadership, which is now returning to austerity without mercy. A real Workers’ Party should focus its energy on promoting Assemblies and Congresses to raise their programmes of demands, organize the struggle for them and propose a break with the imperialist Labour government and independent political organization. It is essential that the constitution of a Workers’ Party be rooted in the current struggle movements, in the working class, in the youth and immigrants. An open debate among all sectors fighting to advance the constitution of a party that can truly be an alternative for workers. This cannot repeat the recipe of setting up electoral structures to contest a place within the capitalist state. The disasters of Syriza and Podemos, of the Labour Party under Corbyn and the demobilizing role of Sanders and AOC are not accidents or surprises. They are the result of the integration into the state (in imperialist countries!) of a ‘reformist’ left, which ends up trying to implement ‘adjustments’ with less pain, without its own strategy for power. The ‘broad’ parties, the ‘umbrella’ structures, are used to integrate the left and social movements behind the professional structures of candidates, who are not subject to the discipline of a class organization. The massive break with Labourism is an opportunity to propose the construction of a real working-class party, militant and combative, not a sum of small groups with contradictory strategies that unite behind professional candidates. Of course, revolutionaries must intervene energetically in this process, but they must do so without lowering their banners, maintaining their programme and independent organization, pushing for the new party of the left to be a revolutionary party of the workers.We revolutionaries have an obligation