Zarah Sultana is adamant that she can stop Nigel Farage. As Reform UK assembled for their conference in Birmingham, Sultana was in Newcastle drumming up support for the nascent left-wing party she is founding alongside her fellow independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn. On Saturday (6 September), members of Majority, the grassroots movement founded by Jamie Driscoll, the former Labour Mayor of the North of Tyne, met for their annual conference. Sultana was there as the guest of honour.
“The things this Labour government are doing is going to basically allow Reform [into power],” Sultana said on Saturday afternoon, “that is a scary thing for any of us. And it has to be challenged at every single point.” Farage has been newly galvanised by the resignation of the former Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner and Reform’s ranking in the polls (35 per cent). Sultana believes her mission is to directly challenge him. “We’ve got four years, if an election is in 2029, to get organised and to have candidates across the country,” she said, “I’m happy for Nigel Farage to think he’s going to be entering Downing Street, but it’s my job and everyone else’s job to stop that from happening.” She added: “I like a good challenge.”
Sultana was, until earlier this year, a member of the Labour party. It was her resignation in July that began the creation of Your Party. “Labour is dead,” she said, “it has failed to deliver for working people.” She described the Prime Minister as “Keir ‘Island of Strangers’ Starmer” and said he has “lied throughout his entire leadership. His leadership and the ten pledges he made were disregarded as soon as he got into leader of the opposition.” Sultana added: “This is someone who will copy and paste Enoch Powell with the ‘Island of Strangers’… the authoritarianism we have seen under the Labour government frightens me. It is literally providing a red rocket to the horrors that I fear we will see under Reform.”
The founding of this new left-wing movement is being led in Parliament by the Independent Alliance, of which Sultana is a member. In recent weeks, Adnan Hussain, the MP for Blackburn, caused controversy after stating that “women’s rights and safe spaces should not be encroached on” and instead “safe third spaces” should be an alternative for transgender people. In a post on X, Sultana seemed to directly disagree with Hussain: “Trans rights are human rights. Your Party will defend them – no ifs, no buts.”
When I asked Sultana how Your Party will deal with these kinds of disagreements between its members and representatives she said: “This is a progressive, socialist party… my job as a parliamentarian first and foremost, as well as someone who is part of Your Party, is to speak up to the most marginalised voices.” She added: “Anyone who feels like they can’t subscribe to…these principals, then [Your Party] might not be for them.”
At the end of her speech, Sultana received a standing ovation from conference delegates. She is a popular, charismatic force on the left. But Your Party is still in an embryonic stage, and its coalition is fragile. Sultana and Corbyn will need more than cheers from those already on side to fend off Nigel Farage.
[See also: Jeremy Corbyn on Zack Polanski: “We will cooperate, but we are different”]
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