Who is Zarah Sultana? MP taking stand against Starmer
It is the custom for maiden speeches to be uncontroversial, but Sultana, then 26, railed against 40 years of Thatcherism. She told her new colleagues that her generation had 'only ever faced a future of rising rents, frozen wages and diminishing opportunities'.
She added: 'For my whole adult life, I have only known Tory governments who wage war on working-class communities like mine.'
The speech was not out of tune with Labour at the time. The new MP for Coventry South was elected under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, but within month Sir Keir Starmer had taken the reigns, telling MPs the party was 'failing in our historic purpose' and vowing to 'rethink'.
As Starmer moved the party to the centre, Sultana and other members of the Socialist Campaign Group became increasingly disenchanted with the direction Labour was taking.
With Labour in opposition, those tensions were largely kept under control, but on entering power any sense of unity disappeared.
Within a month of Labour's election victory Sultana and six other Labour MPs had the whip withdrawn for voting against the government and in favour of an SNP amendment to end the two-child benefit cap.
She said at the time that she had defied the party because she had to 'stand up for what I believe are the true values of the Labour Party'.
Although the suspensions were initially said to be for six months, Sultana has still not had the whip restored and has been increasingly moving away from Labour and towards the group of independent MPs nominally led by Corbyn.
While any new party attacking Labour from the left will worry Starmer, Sultana's involvement will not surprise the party. The surprise in some ways is that she has lasted this long.
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