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“The electorate has twice given its verdict on a Jeremy Corbyn-led party,”

said a Labour source, with all the smugness of someone trying to win an argument by hoping you’ve forgotten how numbers work.

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana — two MPs who represent the poles of generational dissent within British politics — have launched what is, for now, a political party without a name.

This fledgling formation, built in response to years of disenchantment, austerity, war, and Labour timidity, has already attracted sneers from the press and dismissive contempt from its rivals.

Of course this means it might just be onto something.

Let’s talk about what’s actually happening here — because behind the headlines and the jibes, something serious is stirring.

Labour’s “verdict” – and why it is laughable

Labour’s official response to the new party was predictably snide. A spokesperson quipped that “the electorate has twice given its verdict on a Jeremy Corbyn-led party.”

That’s true — in the same way that saying “Keir Starmer won the 2024 general election” is true. Which is to say: it is technically accurate, and yet deeply misleading.

In 2017, Corbyn’s Labour earned 12.9 million votes, the party’s highest total since 2001. It came within a few percentage points of victory and gained seats — defying every pundit and pollster.

In 2019, yes, Labour fell back to 10.3 million votes, largely thanks to Brexit chaos and coordinated sabotage. But even that was more than Keir Starmer’s Labour managed in 2024 — it limped to victory on 9.7 million votes.

So yes, the electorate gave its verdict.

And it liked Corbyn’s Labour more than Starmer’s.

A party without a name — but not without a cause

This new movement doesn’t yet have a name, but it already has something far more important: a direction.

In their founding statement, Corbyn and Sultana write:

“The system is rigged when 4.5 million children live in poverty in the sixth richest country in the world.”

They go on to call for:

• Mass redistribution of wealth

• Public ownership of energy, water, rail, and mail

• An NHS free of privatisation

• A council house building programme

• An end to arms sales to Israel and support for a free and independent Palestine

It is, in short, a manifesto of moral clarity.

The kind of clarity that cuts through the technocratic hedging we’ve come to expect from the Starmer project — which seems to believe that conviction is a liability and boldness a tactical error.

A movement that names the enemy

The new party doesn’t hedge. It names what it’s fighting:

• Poverty, not just “insecurity”

• Billionaires, not “bad actors”

• Fossil fuel companies, not “market imbalances”

• Complicity in genocide, not “a complex and volatile situation”

And in doing so, it restores something that mainstream politics has systematically scrubbed out: the possibility that the world doesn’t have to be like this.

It’s not naïve. It’s honest.

The Gaza line: the real fracture

Labour MPs who spoke out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza were marginalised or suspended.

Zarah Sultana was among them.

Now, alongside Corbyn, she’s helping build a movement that puts Palestinian liberation not as a footnote, but as a core principle.

“We believe in the radical idea that all human life has equal value,” the party says.

That’s not fringe rhetoric.

That’s the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But somehow, in British politics, it’s become a radical proposition.

Is this just Corbyn redux? Not quite.

Some have dismissed this effort as a vanity project — a retread of Corbynism without the Labour machine.

But here’s the key difference: this movement isn’t trying to inherit the Labour Party’s rotting machinery. It’s trying to build outside it — deliberately, and democratically.

They promise a structure that is:

• Community-led

• Decentralised

• Rooted in unions, social movements, and regions

Will it work? That depends on whether they can resist becoming either a cult of personality or a bureaucratic echo chamber.

But the intent — to democratise politics, not centralise it — is radical in the best sense of the word.

My own hesitation — and hope

I’ll be honest: I haven’t signed up.

I admire the values. I think the launch was more coherent than critics admit. And I believe this party deserves attention and space to grow.

But I’m also someone who was expelled from the Labour Party simply for doing my job as a journalist — asking questions and publishing the answers. That experience made me cautious about political structures that demand total allegiance.

So I’m not yet ready to be inside the tent. But I’m not walking away either.

There’s a valuable role — maybe even a necessary one — for people who stand alongside a movement, not within it. Who offer support, critique, and solidarity, but retain enough distance to speak freely.

A political project that fears those voices isn’t a democratic one.

If this new party can welcome both members and independent supporters, it will be stronger for it.

The name I proposed: “The Progressive Party”

In that spirit, I wrote to the new party with a suggestion.

“May I propose The Progressive Party, or perhaps simply Progress, as a potential name?”

Why? Because “progressive” captures a broad, principled coalition:

• Social justice

• Environmental responsibility

• Democratic reform

• Economic fairness

It’s not a faction. It’s a direction.

And crucially, it’s not currently used by any major UK party.

There’s an opportunity here to claim a name that is both aspirational and accessible — one that sounds less like a think tank and more like a movement.

Will they use it? I’ve no idea. But it’s worth offering — because naming a party is about more than branding.

It’s about declaring your purpose to the world.

Something is moving — let’s not look away

What Corbyn and Sultana are doing will be ridiculed – that’s a given.

New political formations always are — especially those that threaten the duopoly of safe, managed politics.

But this deserves more than a footnote or a scoff.

It speaks to something deeper: the hunger for real change, and the refusal to settle for “less bad” as the best we can do.

“Ordinary people create the wealth — and it is ordinary people who have the power to put it back where it belongs,”

the party says.

That’s not a slogan – it’s a challenge.

Let’s see if they’re serious about it.

Let’s also see if we — those inside and outside the party — can build something that doesn’t just protest the status quo, but outgrows it.

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