Westminster's newest comedy: The Corbynistas' recycled revolution

By Cianan Sheekey

The far left loves to espouse the need for a “kinder politics”, one grounded in a fundamental moral value system. “Westminster is broken”, MP Zarah Sultana declared in an X post announcing the launch of her new Party. Indicating that under the co-leadership of herself and former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, they could fix it, she loftily declared, “we are not going to take this anymore”. However, despite appealing to reform a system in supposed disarray, the launch of the new Party of 'Corbynistas' was truly a Westminster affair: an ill-thought-out power grab, with Sultana throwing herself into co-leadership with the leader of the far left who hadn’t formally agreed to co-lead anything.

The ‘comedy show’, of which this article’s headline refers, pertains primarily to the ironic

circumstances in which this new Party has emerged - it exists to break the Westminster

system, yet it behaves no differently. It exists to fight the rise of the right, yet all it is likely to do is little more than fuel it. Manipulative would be an accurate one-word summation; counterproductive or amateurish might be others.

But what do I mean this new Party is no different? Well, internal discussions among the

'Corbynistas' had failed to produce a definitive leadership structure. Yet, Sultana threw out her public announcement of the organisation, seizing a leadership position through public consent, blindsiding her reluctant co-leader. Westminster’s newest Party has already had its first dodgy dealings, dabbling in the kinds of manoeuvres you’d attribute to establishment politics at the point of its inception, despite its claim to exist on a higher plane. Did I mention smoke and mirrors?

Furthermore, the failures of this new entity to attract any prominent MPs from Corbyn’s side of the Labour Party make it very unclear what their actual aim is. If John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, and Clive Lewis are distancing themselves from a rebellion against the Labour leadership, you really have missed the mark. This move isn’t going to push Labour to the left; in fact, it is likely to do the opposite, as two of the far left’s most prominent figures are now unable to voice these concerns to try and drag Starmer in their ideological direction. They will never attract sufficient support to win Parliamentary seats beyond those currently held by Sultana and Corbyn. Thus, all this new Party will do is dilute a small proportion of Labour’s votes across the country, gifting Reform UK another advantage for the next general election.

The power-brokers of this new Party must have considered the electoral realities of the

landscape they find themselves in. Sultana declared that “in 2029, the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism”, yet establishing a new drainpipe of votes will reduce Labour’s vote share, and by extension, erode the electoral weight of the only entity that can take Nigel Farage on. Reality can be a tough pill to swallow, but their version of socialism is actually a double-agent for the very barbarism they espouse to fight. Maybe the in-fighting 'Corbynistas' don’t care. They had their chance to enter government in 2019 and were utterly thrashed at the hands of Boris Johnson, but no lessons have been learnt from this experience as they continue to proscribe the needs and desires of the working classes who flipped Conservative en masse the last time they acted in such a manner. It’s a (poor) revolution, recycled, akin to the rerunning of a subpar, outdated political script.

All this new Party will do is dilute a small proportion of Labour’s votes across the country, gifting Reform UK another advantage for the next general election.

In an article for TheiPaper, Zoë Grünewald hits a lot of nails on their head, albeit she also fires wide off the mark a lot too. While I believe Grünewald is overzealous in her assessment of the viability of a far-left alternative within the current political landscape, she accurately ascertains the far-left’s historic failings and how the shambolic launch of this new Party is projected to reinforce this precedent. Whether it be the infighting, ill-advised aims, or informal social media rollout, it all feels very much like the affairs of a student union and not those of a new parliamentary Party.

In Issue No. 132 of The Telegraph’s ‘From The Telegraph Editor’ newsletter, penned by

Allister Heath, the “new Corbynite party” is depicted with great pejorative vigour. It is referred to as a potent mix of far-left socialism, unruly wokeism, extreme environmentalism, anti-Westernism, and a deep-seated hatred of the Israeli state. While written from the perspective of someone positioned directly opposite to that of the 'Corbynistas' (and in a sensationalist manner), there is undoubtedly concern about what this Party is set to become may well embody the worst elements of the Labour Party, such as those that led to it being referred to as “insufficient” in countering and addressing anti-Semitism by the European Court of Human Rights. The co-leaders at the helm of this new Party have a history of controversy, and whether this new entity can distance itself from such chaos remains to be seen. Its launch certainly hasn’t proven convincing. The re-energised, perpetually feuding far left has its newest iteration. Confused, beneficial to its enemies, and deeply disorganised, it all appears as a cataclysm of disarray.

Image: Wikimedia Commons