Sultana announced on Thursday she was quitting Labour to join Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance
John McDonnell, independent MP for Hayes and Harlington and former shadow chancellor for Labour from 2015 to 2020, said Labour needs to “ask themselves” why someone like Zarah Sultana would choose to leave.
This comes after Sultana, MP for Coventry South, announced she is resigning from the party to join Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance.
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.
Politics isn’t just about the economy, it isn’t just about public services … I wouldn’t underestimate how much the government’s handling of Gaza has really played into this sense of ‘what is Labour about? What is Labour for’?
And it’s not that people think the Labour government can solve every problem in the world, but when I talk about a national narrative, it’s about every situation that you’re in, feeling that there’s a project that is rooted in your values, and that is what’s being communicated over the medium and the long term.
The reason why the welfare rebellion, I think, happened in the way that it did, was because a lot of the Labour MPs came in and thought, well, yeah, I get the government’s got to fix the economy, but I really didn’t come here to make poor people poorer … that messaging has got to be completely fixed in year two.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/jul/04/jeremy-corbyn-zarah-sultana-independent-alliance-labour-keir-starmer-rachel-reeves-uk-politics-latest-news
Author : Amy Sedghi
Publish date : 2025-07-04 08:59:00
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