Keir Starmer says he wants to cut child poverty before next election
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Sky News
14 minutes ago
- Sky News
Inside Jeremy Corbyn's new party and the battle for leadership
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."
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
X criticises Online Safety Act - and warns it's putting free speech in the UK at risk
Why you can trust Sky News The Online Safety Act is putting free speech at risk and needs significant adjustments, Elon Musk's social network X has warned. New rules that came into force last week require platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X - as well as sites hosting pornography - to bring in measures to prove that someone using them is over the age of 18. The Online Safety Act requires sites to protect children and to remove illegal content, but critics have said that the rules have been implemented too broadly, resulting in the censorship of legal content. X has warned the act's laudable intentions were "at risk of being overshadowed by the breadth of its regulatory reach". It said: "When lawmakers approved these measures, they made a conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of 'online safety'. "It is fair to ask if UK citizens were equally aware of the trade-off being made." 3:53 X claims the timetable for platforms to meet mandatory measures had been unnecessarily tight - and despite complying, sites still faced threats of enforcement and fines, "encouraging over-censorship". "A balanced approach is the only way to protect individual liberties, encourage innovation and safeguard children. It's safe to say that significant changes must take place to achieve these objectives in the UK," it said. A UK government spokesperson said it is "demonstrably false" that the Online Safety Act compromises free speech. "As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression," they added. Users have complained about age checks that require personal data to be uploaded to access sites that show pornography, and 468,000 people have already signed a petition asking for the new law to be repealed. In response to the petition, the government said it had "no plans" to reverse the Online Safety Act. 5:23 Reform UK's leader Nigel Farage likened the new rules to "state suppression of genuine free speech" and said his party would ditch the regulations. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said on Tuesday that those who wanted to overturn the act were "on the side of predators" - to which Mr Farage demanded an apology, calling Mr Kyle's comments "absolutely disgusting". Regulator Ofcom said on Thursday it had launched an investigation into how four companies - that collectively run 34 pornography sites - are complying with new age-check requirements. These companies - 8579 LLC, AVS Group Ltd, Kick Online Entertainment S.A. and Trendio Ltd - run dozens of sites, and collectively have more than nine million unique monthly UK visitors, the internet watchdog said. The regulator said it prioritised the companies based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operated and their user numbers. It adds to the 11 investigations already in progress into 4chan, as well as an unnamed online suicide forum, seven file-sharing services, and two adult websites.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Corbyn strikes again as Labour lose their first councillor to the former leader's ultra-left party founded with Zarah Sultana
Labour have lost their first councillor to the ultra-left party former leader Jeremy Corbyn recently founded with dissident MP Zarah Sultana. Grace Lewis, 22, defected from Sir Keir Starmer 's party on Friday to join the new political grouping - which at present is only a 600,000-person-strong mailing list. Ms Lewis, a vocal pro-Palestinian voice on Coventry City Council, represents the ward of Westwood in the southwest of the city. In a post on social media she laid into Labour's record in government, citing Sir Keir's raid on winter fuel payments, cuts to disability allowance and the party's retention of the two child benefit cap. In the statement she said: 'Today, after 5 and a half years, I resigned my Labour Party membership. I will now serve the residents of Westwood on Coventry City Council as an Independent. 'The Labour Party promised 'change', yet since entering government, Labour has cut support for disabled people, kept the Tories cruel Two Child Benefit cap and slashed Winter Fuel Payments - driving record numbers into poverty. 'Rather than address the real crises facing people in our city, they have chosen the side of the rich and powerful. 'They have joined Reform in targeting minorities, including migrants and trans peple, all whilst being atcive participants in the genocide in Gaza, ramping up spending on war, and arming Israel - criminalising peaceful protestors in the process.' Coventry councillor Grace Lewis, 22, (pictured) is the first serving Labour politician to defect to Your Party, the new political grouping formed by former leader Jeremy Corbyn and ex-MP Zarah Sultana Ms Lewis was elected in the City Council Elections on May 2, 2024, two months before Sir Keir Starmer's 'loveless landslide' at that year's General Election. She won her seat with 1936 voters on 47 per cent of the ballot, with the Conservative candidate Asha Masih finishing second on 1415 voters on 35 per cent of votes. Ms Lewis began her two-year term on May 7 and also sits on the City Council's Planning Committee, Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board and Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board. In her short time as an elected councillor she has courted controversy on several occasions - most noteable in her vocal support for the Palestinian cause. Last December she lambasted Israel in a council meeting for carrying out a 'genocidal assault on Gaza', The Telegraph reported. In the same meeting she called for the West Midlands Pension Fund to divest from any investments with companies involved in arms sales to Israel. Ms Lewis also carried over her advocacy into her personal life, wearing a badge of the Palestinian flag to her graduation day last year at the University of Warwick. In another graduation picture she can be seen holding a hand-painted banner with two other students that reads 'Free Palestine'. In the Instagram caption accompanying the photo she wrote: 'My degree may be over, but Warwick's complicity is not #freepalestine.' Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana's movement has the website with a welcome message saying 'this is your party'. Already 600,000 people have signed up to the party's mailing list, although the name is only a placeholder, with Mr Corybn suggesting the members will be handed the final say. Government ministers who used to sit alongside Mr Corbyn in the House of Commons mocked the 'chaotic' launch of the veteran MP's new party. Yet Mr Corbyn shrugged off the criticism and said there had been an 'enormous' response to the launch. Speaking during a visit to a bin strike picket line in Birmingham on Jult 25, he pointed out that hundreds of thousands had already flocked to the new outfit. The party is expected to hold its inagural conference in November and Mr Corbyn has outlined a focus on peace, social justice and an end to austerity economics. In her statement outlining her reasons for quitting Labour, Ms Lewis attacked Labour's spending plans which she said locally included cuts to libaries and charities. But Ms Sultana immediately sowed confusion by insisting a name had not yet been chosen. She frantically posted on social media: 'It's not called Your Party.' She wrote: 'They have continued austerity and failed to properly address the deepening crisis of Local Government finance, with many authorities still at risk of bankruptcy. 'Here in Coventry, the Labou Council cuts library services, cultural funding and support for local charities. 'And when workers stand up to fight for decent living standards Coventry City Council responds by strike-breaking, sending Tom White Waste trucks to Birmingham, insulting the very trade unions which the party was founded to defend. 'This is not the change peple voted for, not the changed I joined the Labour Party for when I was 16, and certainly not the change which people deserve. 'Therefore, I welcome the launch of a new left party, one rootred in working-class communities and committed to real change.' Cllr Lewis added: 'When Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn announced its inception, I felt a sense of genuine political hope for the first time in a long time.' In a post on X commenting on the defection, Zarah Sultana said: 'Grace is a formidable force in local government and I'm proud to welcome her to the new political party we're building! 'Across the country, millions feel politically homeless. Labour is dead. To councillors everywhere: are you really delivering the change Keir Starmer promised?' Polls have suggested the new party headed by Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana could take between 10 and 18 per cent of the vote at the next General Election, which would prove disastrous for Labour nationally. The so-called 'Hastings Independents Group' - which consists of MPs who left Labour in December 2023 - have already affiliated with Your Party. Councillors Paul Barnett, Andy Batsford, John Cannan, Nigel Sinden, Mike Turner, and Simon Willis are all onboard with the new grouping, which seems set to shake up the left of British politics. In an email to supporters, Your Party confirmed their first conference will be held before the end of 2025. They wrote: 'This conference will be the moment where, together, we will decide the direction, structure and platform of this party. 'To make it as accessible and democratic as possible, the conference will be hybrid – both in-person and online – so that everyone can take part in the decisions that will shape its future. Make no mistake: whatever the name, it is always going to be your party.' However, those inside the Labour cabinet have been scathing about Your Party. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle told Times Radio: 'I was an MP in the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. 'And the chaos and instability that he brought to our party I'm now viewing him wreak in his new party. 'I'm just very glad that I'm looking on it from the outside this time, rather than having to experience it from the inside.' Mr Kyle, who campaigned for Mr Corbyn to become prime minister at the 2017 and 2019 general elections, said the veteran left-winger was 'not a serious politician'. He added: 'The thing that worries me the most about what he says is that he doesn't want to spend money defending our country. 'He is against the money that Labour is investing into the defence of our country. 'At the moment, these are the things that should fundamentally worry us about the words of Jeremy Corbyn. 'He's not a serious politician. He doesn't think about governing, he thinks about posturing.'
