logo
Inside Jeremy Corbyn's new party and the battle for leadership

Inside Jeremy Corbyn's new party and the battle for leadership

Sky News3 days ago
Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn may be the figureheads of a new left-wing party, but already there is a battle over leadership.
The confusion behind the initial launch speaks to a wider debate happening behind closed doors as to who should steer the party - now and in the future.
Already, in the true spirit of Mr Corbyn's politics, there is talk of an open leadership contest and grassroots participation.
Some supporters of the new party - which is being temporarily called "Your Party" while a formal name is decided by members - believe that allowing a leadership contest to take place honours Mr Corbyn's commitment to open democracy.
5:51
They point out that under Mr Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party, members famously backed plans to make it easier for local constituency parties to deselect sitting MPs - a concept he strongly believed in.
His allies now say the former Labour leader, who is 76, is open to there being a leadership contest for the new party, possibly at its inaugural conference in the autumn, where names lesser known than himself can throw their hat into the ring.
"Jeremy would rather die than not have an open leadership contest," one source familiar with the internal politics told Sky News.
However, there have been suggestions that Ms Sultana appears to be less keen on the idea of a leadership contest, and that she is more committed to the co-leadership model than her political partner.
Those who have been opposed to the co-leadership model believe it could give Ms Sultana an unfair advantage and exclude other potential candidates from standing in the future.
2:18
One source told Sky News they believed Mr Corbyn should lead the party for two years, to get it established, before others are allowed to stand as leader.
They said Ms Sultana, who became an independent MP after she was suspended from Labour for opposing the two-child benefit cap, was "highly ambitious but completely untested as leader" and "had a lot of growing into the role to do".
"It's not about her - it's about taking a democratic approach, which is what we're supposed to be doing," they said.
"There are so many people who have done amazing things locally and they need to have a chance to emerge as leaders.
"We are not only fishing from a pool of two people.
"It needs to be an open contest. Nobody needs to be crowned."
1:22
While Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana undoubtedly have the biggest profiles out of would-be leaders, advocates for a grassroots approach to the leadership point to the success some independent candidates have enjoyed at a local level - for example, 24-year-old British Palestinian Leah Mohammed, who came within 528 votes of unseating Health Secretary Wes Streeting in Ilford North.
Fiona Lali of the Revolutionary Communist Party, who stood in last year's general election for the Stratford and Bow constituency, has also been mentioned in some circles as someone with potential leadership credentials.
However, sources close to Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana downplayed suggestions of any divide over the leadership model, pointing out that their joint statement acknowledged that members would "decide the party's direction" at the inaugural conference in the autumn, including the model of leadership and the policies that are needed to transform society.
A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn told Sky News: "Jeremy will be working with Zarah, his independent colleagues, and people from trade unions and social movements up and down the country to make an autumn conference a reality.
"This will be the moment where people come together to launch a new democratic party that belongs to the members."
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Immigration piling ‘unsustainable' pressure on public services, warns top UK financial watchdog
Immigration piling ‘unsustainable' pressure on public services, warns top UK financial watchdog

The Sun

timea minute ago

  • The Sun

Immigration piling ‘unsustainable' pressure on public services, warns top UK financial watchdog

IMMIGRATION is creating a strain on public services, a top official at the UK's fiscal watchdog has warned. Economist David Miles said the country's reliance on overseas workers 'could not be sustained'. 2 The Office for Budget Responsibility official urged Labour to target worklessness at home rather than relying on mass migration. Mr Miles wrote: ' Immigration, which primarily involves those of working age, delays the impact of the ageing of the population and is the driver of population growth. 'Some conclude a faster rise in the population will be beneficial in alleviating acute underlying fiscal pressures. 'But there are serious problems with that idea.' He argued migrants still use schools, hospitals and other services and eventually become eligible for benefits. Mr Miles said the answer lies in tackling the post-Covid — which was mainly driven by Brits. He wrote: 'The fiscal benefits of helping people, especially young people, back into employment are substantial.' It comes as Labour faces a backlash over Britain's soaring benefits bill after caving to backbench rebels and watering down reforms. Mr Miles' comments mark a major intervention from a senior figure at the OBR, which has long treated immigration as an economic good. The OBR has admitted low-paid migrants are a net drain — costing taxpayers £150,000 each by the time they hit state pension age. Data shows immigration fuelled England and Wales' population growth by 700,000 in a year to June 2024. 2 The Sun watches as hundreds of illegal migrants arrive at Dover

Was it Starmer's plan all along to make us so subservient to the EU that we'd be better off back in?
Was it Starmer's plan all along to make us so subservient to the EU that we'd be better off back in?

The Sun

timea minute ago

  • The Sun

Was it Starmer's plan all along to make us so subservient to the EU that we'd be better off back in?

WERE we fooled too easily by Sir Keir Starmer's assurances that he had no intention of taking Britain back into the EU? With the publication of the EU's draft documents for the 'reset' in relations between Britain and the bloc, it is tempting to wonder whether there has been a scheme in the PM's mind all along: to make Britain so subservient to the EU that eventually a return to full membership becomes a less-worse option. 3 3 As announced by Starmer and EU ­Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at their summit in London in May, a new 'common sanitary and phyto-sanitary' area will be created. That should mean the end of checks on food imports and exports — as well as petty customs officers confiscating sandwiches from lorry drivers. Needless to say, it comes at a price. In order to escape the border checks, Britain will have to agree to full alignment with EU food standards. And it is becoming increasingly clear what this means in practice: Britain ­simply agreeing to enact EU standards. French farmers In contrast to when we were members of the EU, however, we will have little say in what those standards should be. We may be consulted, but it is the EU which will make the rules and Britain which is forced to accept them. It is obvious from past experience what is going to happen. EU legislators, heavily lobbied by French farmers and the like, will pass laws which are designed to discriminate against UK-made produce, in order to keep it out of EU markets. We will have no power to stop them. To take an example, Britain spent 27 years fighting the EU for the right to sell our chocolate bars across the Continent. Keir Starmer- hopes for reset with EU do not mean 'reversing Brexit' The EU, under pressure from French and Belgian manufacturers, wanted to impose a limit on the milk content and vegetable fat content of chocolate bars — which just happened to permit products made in France and Belgium but exclude those which were popular in Britain. In a typical piece of EU-style bureaucratic invention, officials tried to come up with a compromise: where UK-made bars would be labelled 'vegelate' — presumably to make them sound so unappetising that no one would want to buy them anyway. Britain eventually won that battle — in 2000, after nearly three decades of ­bruising political and legal battle. But in future? Britain will have no say. The European Commission will be able to pass a law banning British ­chocolate bars and there will be little we can do about it. British food manufacturers could, perhaps, appeal to the new 'independent arbitrary tribunal' which will be set up to judge trade disputes, but it won't really be worthy of the name 'independent'. As the EU draft documents make clear, the EU's Court of Justice will become 'the ultimate authority for all questions of EU law'. Needless to say, the EU wants Britain to pay for the privilege of joining its ­common sanitary area. We will also be under obligation to align our carbon levies with the EU, making it more difficult for a future UK government to escape the straitjacket of Net Zero. Both Britain and the EU are in the process of imposing carbon border taxes — levies on imports according to their embedded carbon emissions. Under the reset, Britain will be expected to align its own system with the EU's. It was exactly these kinds of arrangement which Theresa May and Boris Johnson's governments fought so hard to avoid — not very satisfactorily, it has to be said. We actually ended up with an arrangement which created an internal UK border between Britain and Northern Ireland. But the system which will come about as a result of Starmer's reset will be far worse. It will take us close to being the 'vassal state' that Jacob Rees-Mogg warned about — a vassal state being the name given to states in medieval Europe which were notionally independent but in practice were under the control of, and under ­obligation to pay taxes to, a much larger empire. No UK PM ever really tried to play the EU at its game — even though they ought to have been in the driving seat in negotiations At the moment, the reset will cover food, animal and plant products as well as a number of high-carbon materials such as steel and cement. Second referendum But this will almost certainly mark just a beginning. Under a Starmer government we will be sucked further and further into the EU's orbit until it becomes a mere tidying-up exercise to rejoin the bloc in full. Donald Trump has just shown what you can do if you negotiate hard with the EU — European Commission president Von der Leyen ended up agreeing to 15 per cent tariffs on EU exports to the US, as well as a ­commitment to buy more US oil and gas — all for very little in return. Yet no UK PM ever really tried to play the EU at its game — even though they ought to have been in the driving seat in negotiations with the EU because they sell more to us than we sell to them. While Conservatives were trying and failing to get a good deal, Starmer, you might remember, was campaigning for a second Brexit referendum in which — he hoped — Britons would vote to reverse the result of the first. He didn't get his way on that, of course. But that doesn't mean he has given up on trying to reinstate Britain in the EU. To judge by his actions, that may very well be his undeclared ambition.

The ex-soldier who has raised £30k to fund anti-migrant protests
The ex-soldier who has raised £30k to fund anti-migrant protests

Times

timea minute ago

  • Times

The ex-soldier who has raised £30k to fund anti-migrant protests

A former soldier has raised more than £30,000 in donations to help fund an anti-migrant movement that is calling for protests to take place outside every hotel housing asylum seekers 'until they are all deported'. Richard Donaldson, 33, from Chester, is the leader of the Great British National Protest (GBNP), a group that has claimed to be behind 20 protests around the country. The group is calling for further protests to take place outside named hotels this Saturday in Liverpool, Canary Wharf, Birmingham, Leeds, Exeter and Bristol. • Why are we seeing anti-immigration protests again? It has also shared a list purporting to show the locations of every hotel housing migrants in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and called on its followers — of which there are almost 150,000 on Facebook — to protest outside them every Saturday 'for the foreseeable future … until they are all deported'. Through a GoFundMe page, Donaldson has raised £31,000, which he says is used to pay for leaflets, megaphones, banners and lawyers fees 'to keep me out of jail'. He added: 'I never intend to break the law but with what I'm doing, I have no option but to push the boundaries as much as possible without crossing the line.' In comments to The Times, he said that the money was also being used to fund 'covert investigations inside hotels'. The group claims to have recruited members of staff in migrant hotels who are willing to wear hidden body cameras to 'catch footage and gather intel'. Neither he nor any members of his team had ever taken 'a penny' of the donated money for personal use, he said. The group is also selling merchandise branded with the GBNP emblem, including caps costing £19.50. Donaldson served in army logistics for seven years and completed tours of duty to the Middle East. Since leaving the army, which he said had 'got quite woke', he has worked in retail management. This year, he began uploading videos of himself to TikTok calling for a 'national strike' in protest against the government's policy on asylum, net zero and farming. A 'strike', whose stated purpose was to 'stop the invasion and get Labour out', was organised in May in 77 towns and cities around the country but failed to attract large numbers. Donaldson said that he started the movement because he was 'angry at the state of rapid decline' in the country and 'scared for my son's future and for all of our kids in the UK'. He has voiced support for Nick Tenconi, leader of Ukip, who has made appearances at GBNP events. Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, which was Ukip's original raison d'etre, the party has re-emerged with a more radical agenda and has courted Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, as a potential ally. Ukip has also been involved in organising anti-migrant protests and is calling for three 'mass deportation marches' to take place over the coming months. Protests, organised by a variety of groups including far-right parties such as Homeland, have taken place across the country over the past month. There are concerns that they could spiral out of control as was the case during the race riots of last summer when marauding gangs attempted to set fire to migrant hotels. The Home Office has said that the number of hotels being used for asylum seekers has decreased from more than 400 in summer 2023 to less than 210. It also announced plans to end the use of hotels to house migrants by 2029, which the Treasury says will save £1 billion a year. However, Home Office figures show that more than 25,000 migrants have attempted to cross the Channel to the UK in small boats this year — the earliest the figure has been reached. • Yvette Cooper's fast-track asylum plan revealed as protests erupt again Over the weekend, 15 people were arrested when anti-migrant groups and counter-demonstrators clashed at protests in London and Newcastle, and before a march in Manchester city centre. The protest outside The New Bridge Hotel in Newcastle was organised by GBNP. Four people were arrested and remain in custody, according to Northumbria police. Asked whether he was concerned that the protests he was organising could result in criminality and the stirring of racial tensions, Donaldson said: 'We support peaceful protesting. We have to be peaceful and we have to be lawful. We absolutely do not support any criminality or any law-breaking.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store