A former Labour MP has said she will co-lead a new political party with former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, hitting out at the government for having “completely failed to improve people’s lives”.
Zarah Sultana, whose Labour whip was suspended last year after voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap, was still a member of the party despite no longer being a Labour MP.
But in a statement on Thursday, she confirmed her resignation from Labour and announced plans to co-lead a new party alongside Mr Corbyn and “other independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country”.
But in a sign of early division, reports emerged in The Times on Thursday that Mr Corbyn had not yet agreed to lead the party with Ms Sultana.
In a statement on social media, Ms Sultana said: “Westminster is broken but the real crisis is deeper”, warning that the “two-party system offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises”.
She added: “A year ago, I was suspended by the Labour Party for voting to abolish the two-child benefit cap and lift 400,000 children out of poverty.
“I’d do it again. I voted against scrapping winter fuel payments for pensioners. I’d do it again.
“Now, the government wants to make disabled people suffer; they just can’t decide how much.”
It comes after Sir Keir was forced to abandon a key plank of his controversial benefit cuts in order to get them through parliament in the face of a mass rebellion of Labour MPs.
While his welfare reform bill passed its second reading by 335 votes to 260 – a majority of 75 – the prime minister still suffered the largest rebellion of his premiership so far, with 49 Labour MPs voting to reject the legislation.
It came after a last-ditch announcement that plans to restrict eligibility for personal independence payments (PIP) – which had been the central pillar of the government’s reforms – were being dropped in a humiliating climb down for the prime minister.
The rebellion was a sign of growing disaffection among Labour MPs, with mounting concern over Sir Keir’s leadership and the direction of the government.
Responding to the former Labour MP’s announcement that she was co-founding the new party, home secretary Yvette Cooper said Ms Sultana “has always taken a very different view to most people in the government on a lot of different things, and that’s for her to do so.”
Ms Cooper also rejected the Coventry South MP’s accusation that Labour was failing to improve people’s lives, telling Sky News: “I just strongly disagree with her.”
The home secretary pointed to falling waiting times in the NHS, the announcement of additional neighbourhood police officers, extending free school meals and strengthening renters’ rights as areas where the government was acting.
“These are real changes [that] have a real impact on people’s lives”, she said.
John McDonnell, a Labour MP on the left of the party who previously served in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, said he was “dreadfully sorry to lose Zarah from the Labour Party”.
“The people running Labour at the moment need to ask themselves why a young, articulate, talented, extremely dedicated socialist feels she now has no home in the Labour Party and has to leave”, he warned.
Ms Sultana was one of seven MPs who had the Labour whip suspended last summer when they supported an amendment to the King’s Speech which related to the two-child benefit cap.
Four of the seven had the whip restored earlier this year, but Ms Sultana was not among them.
And during a debate in the Commons this week, Ms Sultana drew a sharp comparison between Sir Keir’s past and present when recalling how, as a barrister, he defended an activist who broke into RAF Fairford to prevent war crimes in Iraq, calling it “not terrorism, but conscience”.
“That case became a landmark in lawful nonviolent direct action against an illegal war. That barrister is now our prime minister,” she said.
Ms Sultana’s speech came as MPs voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation after the activist group targeted RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire, and an Israeli defence company’s UK headquarters.
