Jeremy Corbyn has just announced he is launching a brand new left-wing party – but it already sounds very similar to the Green Party’s proposals.
Together with fellow former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, the ex-Labour leader promised a “new kind of political party” which “belongs to you”.
They said they would call for a wealth tax, champion an NHS which is free from privatisation, stand up for Palestine and challenge the fossil fuel giants “putting their profits before our planet”.
These policies are not dissimilar to those backed by the Green Party, which many former Labour supporters, now disillusioned, have flocked to over the last year.
That could therefore put the two parties at odds with one another.
Zack Polanski, the frontrunner in the ongoing Greens’ leadership race and the party’s current deputy, told HuffPost UK shortly after Corbyn’s announcement it is clear the parties have plenty in common.
He noted: “I’ve read the statement and I can’t see a single thing in there that’s not Green Party policy or doesn’t align already with the Green Party.”
He said: “I really like Jeremy and Zarah both as people and also as politicians. I’m supportive of anything they’re setting up.”
But the London Assembly member also made it clear they would be “welcome” in the Greens, which he called a “movement for change”.
He said: “I think it’s a positive thing that they’ve recognised that the Labour Party as a vehicle of progressive change that utterly collapsed, and it’s time to abandon it. They’ve not left the Labour Party, but Labour Party has left them.”
However, he noted that – unlike Corbyn’s new group – the Greens do not need to have a conference in the autumn to decide their name.
“Maybe that conference should decide actually, the Green party exists and is doing really well,” Polanski said, pointing to the nearly two million votes they secured in the general election. “It kind of makes sense to join the Green Party.”
More vote splitting of the Left. Oh joy. So looking forwards to Farge’s version of ICE thugs…
Can we please please please get rid of FPTP before it ends in tears?
How can the left split more. Most will not vote labour. Only a few did this time,
This is not more splitting, it is the left trying to find a party that gives the slitest shit about them
Labour do need to reclaim more of their traditional base because if they don’t, they will not vote Labour. If that’s not Labour, or not vote, is much the same under FPTP in many places. Labour is the only way to keep Tories/Reform out, until we get rid of FPTP. Labour should be putting country before party and getting rid of FPTP, but they certainly won’t this term. If ever.
I want FPTP gone, but until then, all we can do is vote as best we can, in the area we are in, to try and keep the worse out of power. Corybn isn’t helping this, again. He was a perfect Labour leader for the Right to scare their base to rally behind Bonking Borris. Some Cons even joined Lab to vote Corybn for this reason. I know one who did exactly that and he wasn’t alone.
This whole argument is flawed.
If reform can be a serious risk to Tory and labour. So can a left of labour party.
The whole argument reform is a risk. Cannot sit with only labour can ever win.
More so labour is the newer of our 2 party leaders. Others can come and have.
The problem is the new party that could realistically get into government right now is Reform.
The best I can hope for is Corbyn’s peals left leaning voters back from Reform. Realistically it’s not going to win power, so if they split left even more, we are in trouble. Hopefully, this is also true of Reform by the time of an election, but right now, it’s worrying.
Reform will be a disastrous government making even the Tories look professorial and caring.
If you right leaning, you basically vote Tory or Reform. If you left leaning you have more choices, some of which depend where you are. The left can’t all agree on a party. The closest to that is Labour. Our voting system just isn’t setup for this. It’s unrepresentative at the best of times.
Because Farage can split the right to win…
But the left splitting means it has to lose?
I desperately want to get politics away from being about figureheads and cults around individuals. But it already looks like Green at looking at a new party with some interest. A decent coalition of “actual” left parties, working together could … could … be really quite powerful.
The Right is split in two. If that, as I expect them to merge by election time.
The left… so many ways. Lab, Lib, Green, SNP, Plaid and now this. And I’m probably missing some.
We a progressive country normally but our voting system and left splitting gives us mostly Tories.
Corbyn has already led a party to victory though. Despite it being coup’d by Starmer afterwards.
Last I checked, Labour lost in 2019.
Labour got a MUCH higher vote share under Corbyn than under starmer. Even in 2019.
And? They still didn’t win, so the claim Corbyn led them to victory is wrong.
Surely you’re not going to say that Keir Starmer is what led Labour to victory.
Don’t put words in my mouth because you don’t have a counter to my argument. I’ve said pretty consistently that 2024 was a Tory loss, not a Labour victory. That doesn’t change the fact that Corbyn lost both General Elections he was leader for, so what victory did he lead the party to? The Boris Johnson premiership?
What is your argument exactly? Is it just that you don’t like Corbyn? Some fucking intellect there pal.
Corbyn did lead Labour to victory. The victory of energising an entire generation and getting them interested in politics. Thousands of people became activists because of his work. You don’t think winning votes is the only possible form of victory do you?
Oh god. These far right adjacent fascists and their facts. They’re everywhere. /s
That’s said, we collectively elected a different set of cunts doing exactly the same thing as this lot.
What do you mean by the second point? Lumping Corbyn in with Oversteer Keir?
No. The Tories and Labour have had the same migration (and other) policy(ies) for years.
I’m Gen X, so as far as I’m concerned Corbyn is just an updated Michael Foot of my formative era. Except that MF’s (oooh I hadn’t realised that was the abbreviation) hobbyhorse was nuclear disarmament as I recall.
The older I get, the more liberal I get, but today’s youth are moving faster than me far far left displaying extreme authoritarian tactics. The inability of kids to get decent jobs, the apparent pointlessness of a uni education, and homes being out of affordability must play into that, but I don’t understand the rest of it really.
The seventies in the UK was just like this - I was very young pre teen - everything felt hopeless. Electricity was very limited - four hours a day. Rubbish and corpses piled up everywhere in the UK. I understand what it’s like. I’ve been though this before.
The Tories are looking for the next Mrs T to come save everyone. The circumstances which created Mrs T are no longer available and they wouldn’t recognise them/him/her if they did. Labour have no clue what they want but they know that they want to micro manage it to the n-th degree - the world needs more micromanaging bosses(!); that’s the reaction of someone who is terrified.
At the end of the day, the “West” and I hesitate to say the whole world is having a population crisis. The minimum babies per woman is way below 2.1 replacement, South Korea is at 0.7, the UK is at 1.7. Japan is about the same. The people are needed to maintain growth and pay the pensions at least.
Rather than fixing the problems they are looking at the symptoms.
I think you covered a lot of why the youth are annoyed. The only difference is they have self-esteem and know things should be better. I cannot disagree.
Older folk in politics have a mindset of “I suffered, and so should you.” It’s quite devoid of empathy or nurturing of the future generations. Old people vote, vote for self-interest and nothing changes for the good for the young. It’s a conveyor belt of disenfranchisement. Voting age decrease is a first thing in a while that’ll touch that.
I seem to get more left as I get older. The most accurate take for me… “if you can afford to kill people, you can afford to help people”. I guess if you have disdain for Michael Foot, you won’t be keen on the chap who said that.
I will agree we are not fixing the problems though. No politician with a spine to kill the triple lock. Popping out babies will sustain this broken system but probably consume the planet. I’d rather we saved the planet than capitalism tbh.
Corbyn’s hobbyhorse is also nuclear disarmament. He even (stupidly) said on TV that if elected, his letter of last resort would read “do not fire. surrender to the nearest friendly port”
If a nuclear war kicks off, it would be better to be in the middle of it being deatomised and doing the experiments that don’t currently work in LHC. Not sure how to publish the results …
'Mercans have this idea that the second amendment (and case law attached) makes them safer in their own homes. I think anyone outside 'Merca can see the reality. Australia used to have guns and they ditched them.
Given the choice I’d still rather have them than not. However, having enough to blow the shit out of the world more than a couple of times does seem pointless waste of resources. I’d rather put the money into making fusion work outside an H bomb.
Ah yes, Corbyn’s delusional claim that he “won the argument” while simultaneously achieving Labour’s worst election defeat since the 1930s.
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I’m struggling to believe he could possibly think this has a chance of making any impact. There’s got to be something else going on here cos it’s going to be a massive uphill battle for him and he’s already 76. I wonder what’s driving him? Maybe it’s the memory of that one time he felt cool on stage at Glasto? Just to put it in context 76 means he was born 4 years after Hitler died.
