By Rob Lownie
Corbynism should have died a little past 3am on 13 December, 2019. Jeremy Corbyn delivered the eulogy himself at his general election count, declaring he would not lead the Labour Party into any future campaigns. “We will forever continue the cause for socialism, for social justice, and for a society based on the needs of all,” he said. “Those ideas and those principles are eternal.” Set against the backdrop of a demolished Red Wall, it was less a battle cry than a death rattle.
A year into Keir Starmer’s government, however, and Corbynism’s corpse is rising. On Thursday evening, Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana announced that she was resigning from Labour in order to set up a new party with the old leader, alongside various other independent MPs, campaigners and activists. Citing the welfare reforms, which were torturously voted through last week following an internal rebellion, she wrote that “the Government wants to make disabled people suffer; they just can’t decide how much”. She also accused Starmer’s ministry of being “an active participant in genocide” in Gaza.
Whether this new force on the Left will hold together is another matter. Corbyn was reportedly “furious and bewildered” that the fledgling party was launched before he agreed to join. “Zarah jumped the gun a bit with that,” a source close to the project admits. Corbyn has since declared that “discussions are ongoing” and “the democratic foundations of a new kind of political party will soon take shape” — hardly as emphatic a launch as Sultana’s the previous night.