British politics is a funny thing. The parliamentary system, with its multiple parties, can make for interesting elections. Coalitions can entrench delicate power on the right or left for years.
Another quirky feature of politics in Britain is that the Conservative Party isn’t all that conservative anymore. The Tories may be center-right (centre-right?), but they hold multiple positions that would baffle American conservatives. Britain’s other major party, the Labour Party, is analogous to America’s Democrats.
Smaller parties litter the UK political landscape, and with the notable exception of Reform UK, which is making inroads in Great Britain, most of them are of the left. Some former key figures from the Labour Party are set to add another party to that list.
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist and disgraced former Labour leader, is forming a new party with former Labour MP Zarah Sultana. In this party’s early days, Corbyn and Sultana have hit a snag: They can’t come up with a name.
“Initial reports that it was going to be called Your Party — because that's what the sign-up website is called — were quickly shot down by Sultana,” the BBC reported last month.
Side note: I think it’s rich that a bunch of far-left collectivists would even consider naming a party “Your Party.” “Our Party” is more their speed. Japan’s “Your Party,” the center-right Minna no Tō (みんなの党), lasted from 2009 to 2014. The UK also had a “Your Party” from 2004 to 2006.
“She [Sultana] has said she thinks The Left or the Left Party would be a good title for the new venture,” the BBC report continued. “But the pair have said they want supporters to come up with a name, as part of their debate on what the new party will stand for.”
As of right now, “Your Party” has stuck, although its leaders still claim that the party doesn’t have a name. It can’t field candidates until it has an official name.
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So far, the mystery party with a name but no name is finding its allies in the typical spaces of the far left. Zack Polanski, the new leader of the eco-centric Green Party, has already said that he is open to working with Corbyn and Sultana.
Asked if the Greens might hypothetically stand down candidates in a pact with the new party, he said: “It’s not my starting point, because at the moment I’m not quite sure what Zarah Sultana’s and Jeremy Corbyn’s platform is going to be.”
Polanski said he expected the Greens’ programme to be more radical and would need to be shown “very strong arguments” for any formal pact. A more likely outcome would be cooperation over which seats each party targeted.
He rejected the idea that the left of politics was a crowded field, highlighting that Starmer had not even condemned Farage’s “toxic tirade” about the proposed mass deportation of immigrants, merely saying he was “going to do it in a different way.”
A group of socialists in Worcester, near the England-Wales border, is expressing interest in working with Corbyn and Sultana.
“For all those battling against cuts to public services, fighting against low pay, protesting against atrocities in Gaza and in other wars internationally, there exists a huge opportunity to build a new political party to strengthen our struggles,” Mark Davies, secretary of Worcester Socialist Party, told Worcester News.
“We need a new party for workers and young people, one that refuses to make political choices simply to serve the markets but stands with the millions of working people and fights to end poverty pay, the housing crisis, and crumbling public services,” said Archie Harrison, another socialist.
In other words, the far left is willing to work with Corbyn’s new, maybe-named-but-maybe-unnamed party because they’re fellow travelers. I imagine that Corbyn’s antisemitism might appeal to them, too.
“The party already has a problem,” noted Dr. Albert Mohler on his podcast on Thursday morning. “It's a new party. A new party is started almost every week in Britain. Most of them are started, they register, they make a statement, they disappear. That might happen to this new party as well.”
Corbyn’s name carries clout with the British left, but is it enough? Will his new venture take off, or will it litter the roadside like so many of the other upstart parties in modern UK politics? Time will tell.
Corbyn and Sultana just need to come up with a name first.
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