The Problem of Labour
- Tiago Caixado
- Aug 21
- 4 min read
Written By: Tiago Caixado
With the emergence of a new left-of-centre party headed by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, British politics is set for a shake-up that not many could anticipate even a year ago. Ex-Labour leader Corbyn and suspended party member Sultana called in July 2025 for the formation of a new political movement. The provisional name, "Your Party", was promoted through a simple website, with a vow of a grass-roots platform on a foundation of basic wealth and power redistribution, public service nationalism, a strengthened welfare state, and an uncompromising anti-war stance with vocal opposition to British policy in Gaza.
The response was swift and phenomenal. Within a period of hours, over eighty thousand had registered. In a week it had reached six hundred thousand, and by August had enrolled over seven hundred thousand members, bringing the new party within striking distance of Labour and the Tories in terms of popular support. Such rapid mobilisation means that discontent with Keir Starmer's Labour has congealed into a genuine movement, one that can split the centre-left vote for the first time in modern British politics.
The charm of Corbyn and Sultana's project lies in its ideological differentiation. In contrast to Starmer's cautious centrism, which has been criticized as sounding managerial and dry, "Your Party" proudly invokes socialist principles and promises to reverse privatizations which have organised the British state since the Thatcher government. Zarah Sultana has been especially outspoken, declaring the 2029 election as one of socialism or barbarism, a line that has struck very deeply with young campaigners and those who are disillusioned by what they see as compromises from Labour leadership.
The reaction. Should have expected. Been one of skepticism. Pundits in The Guardian cautioned that the absence of organisational form, a fixed system of leadership, and even a definitive title may condemn the movement to being a protest movement and not a governing opposition. But others observe that the number of people who supported it initially is such that there must be something more profound going on. As Al Jazeera reports, a YouGov survey estimates that nearly one in five Britons are already open to voting for the new party, a figure far outside the normal range of backing for marginal left-wing endeavors in the United Kingdom
This too must be placed within the larger context of British politics. The two-party system has been tested for decades, with the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, and now Reform UK proving that populist or single-issue parties can challenge electoral orthodoxy. Reform UK particularly has surfed on the tide of anti-immigration and national identity emotions on heart-string appeals to win over disillusioned Labour and Conservative voters. A Financial Times analysis recently described how right-wing populism has been more successful at mobilising voters in the short term, while left-wing populism has largely struggled to convert grassroots momentum into institutional influence over the long term.
Zarah Sultana is one of the leading names of this new generation of the left. Elected with a growing majority in 2024, she became famous nationwide for her strident denunciation of British arms sales to Israel and her robust denunciation of Starmer's Gaza policy. Her suspension from Labour then provided the spark many campaigners had long hoped for. Her decision to co-found a new party with Corbyn has made her a lightning rod for debate about the future of the British left. To some of their supporters, she symbolizes the generational turn towards a politics of climate justice, anti-imperialism, and radical equality. To others, she is proof of the left's inability to absorb and participate in pragmatic government.
Whether "Your Party" takes root as a permanent influence or vanishes as another short-lived experiment is up to the extent to which it is able to institutionalise its early momentum. British political history provides both models. The Social Democratic Party of the 1980s transitorily exploded then lapsed back into merger with the Liberals. By contrast, UKIP never achieved more than a handful of seats but changed the politics agenda by demanding the Brexit referendum. Corbyn and Sultana's faction can either way go, but the scale alone of early backing against it means that there is little chance that this anger with Labour under Starmer is a flash in the pan.
The irony of the circumstance is that Labour has just recaptured power after over a decade out of power, and already its restive heartland has produced a split. Keir Starmer's emphasis on competence, moderation, and electability succeeded in displacing the Conservatives but not sufficiently to give hope to those who had longed to see a project of transformation. Over against this stands the shadow of Tony Blair. Blair was also blamed for diluting Labour's socialist roots, yet his vision for New Labour and the Third Way permeated so thoroughly the centre ground that he was able to win three consecutive general elections. For those of the left who accused him, the division that now exists under Starmer is a delayed accounting for the compromises which Blair brought in during the 1990s.
What is clear is that British politics is once again heading into turbulence. The formation of Corbyn and Sultana's new party is proof both of the desire for radical alternatives and of the fragility of Labour's hold on its traditional coalition. Whether or not this will transform the system in the way that Blair's New Labour did, or prove to be a symbolic protest, will be one of the most important political questions of the next decade. For now, the record of Tony Blair as Labour's golden boy is a claim that vision, leadership, and the capacity to remake oneself can take a party from debacle to hegemony. The challenge for the new left is whether it possesses the same capacity to reverse fortunes in a period where populism, fragmentation, and disillusionment are shaping the politics of countries.
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