Britain’s new far-left party may be Jeremy Corbyn’s undoing

Ben Cohen

British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn, April 22, 2020. Credit: U.K. Parliament/Jessica Taylor, Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons.

Like a stubborn stain that clings to your shirt no matter how many times you venture to the dry cleaners, Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the ruling Labour Party in the United Kingdom, refuses to disappear.

Not a few pundits believed that with Corbyn’s expulsion from the Labour Party in 2024 over his continuing denial of the antisemitism scandals that plagued his term, he would fade into obscurity. But he continues to sit in the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament in an independent alliance with four Islamist colleagues who were recently elected in heavily Muslim constituencies on anti-Israel platforms.

Last weekend, Corbyn was in the city of Liverpool, England, for the inaugural conference of Britain’s latest far-left experiment, known as “Your Party.” In theory, at least, the launch of a new vehicle for the far left should fill critical observers with dread, particularly at a time when extremists are making deepening political strides in an unhappy, polarized Britain. What we saw in Liverpool, however, was more like a form of comedy.

Delegates, who were decked out in the sorts of colors you would normally encounter in a bowl of Froot Loops, yelled and squabbled over procedure. Their voices echoed awkwardly throughout a cavernous hall that organizers claimed would fill with more than 13,000 activists, yet attracted only about 2,500. No decisions—on the name of the new party, on its leadership structure, on who was permitted to actually attend the conference and who wasn’t—were reached without acrimony. For many of those watching the debates or catching clips on social media, it was all deliciously reminiscent of the famed scene in Monty Python’s 1979 comedy “Life of Brian,” where the Judean People’s Front sit in an amphitheater showering abuse on the People’s Front of Judea.

In truth, we should not be at all surprised that Your Party’s first conference will be remembered for its recriminations and infighting. This has been the party’s story since its conception earlier this year. Ironically, the most immediate victim may be Corbyn himself.

Now in his mid-70s, Corbyn is no longer the cherished leader who was serenaded with chants of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” at the Glastonbury music festival in 2017. For a new generation of activists, he is something of a fossil. His bid to lead the party, as well as his opposition to the collective leadership model that was eventually adopted, was coldly rejected by the conference. His very public rift with the other key figure in Your Party—the far-left Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana, who resigned from Labour in July—has done him no favors. Increasingly, Corbyn is presented within Your Party circles as an intemperate, elderly white man trying to muzzle the voice of a young Muslim woman.

Official portrait of British Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana, July 23, 2024. Credit: Jessica Taylor via Wikimedia Commons.

Some of the issues dividing Corbyn from Sultana are internal, stemming from her decision over the summer to announce the party’s formation without his signoff, along with her funneling of more than $1 million in supporter donations into a bank account under her control. Some of them are more overtly political, getting to the heart of what still divides the secular revolutionary left from the Islamists it has so enthusiastically made common cause with. As the Your Party delegates were rudely reminded last weekend, Islamists—whether they are Hamas terrorists or members of the British parliament—believe that there are only two genders, male and female, and that the latter must always be subordinate to the former. Despite declaring herself a proud Muslim, on this question, Sultana is firmly in the secular camp, which holds that there are multiple genders, a message reinforced by multiple speakers from the podium.

In addition, and this is really quite incredible, several of the delegates in Liverpool accused Corbyn, who turned the Labour Party into a living hell for its Jewish supporters, of not being sufficiently inimical toward Zionism. Again, this dispute is rooted in a generational pivot. For boomer leftists like Corbyn, it has been routine to include boilerplate condemnations of Jew-hatred alongside their declared hostility to Zionism. For this new generation, the term “antisemitism” is abruptly divorced from its past, understood only as a suspicious construct designed to censor pro-Palestinian voices by reinforcing supposedly Zionist notions of “Jewish privilege,” thus perpetuating “Jewish supremacy.” This trend has been particularly marked since the Hamas pogrom in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

As well as being denounced as a crypto-Zionist, Corbyn failed to win the leadership of Your Party. Instead, delegates chose a laughably unwieldy collective leadership structure that excludes serving parliamentarians from the top roles on its executive committee. Corbyn also failed to prevent members of far-left sects like the Socialist Workers’ Party from joining Your Party, in another victory for Sultana, though one she may well end up regretting when these same sects inevitably turn their ire upon her.

Corbyn’s predicament is another example of how, as an 18th-century French writer put it amid the bloodshed that followed the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy, “the revolution devours its children.” In his case, it is perhaps fitting that his latest difficulties emanate from the objections of his ostensible supporters and not from those inside and outside the British Jewish community, who have long opposed his pro-Hamas, anti-NATO, pro-Russian policies and his indulgence of the most vicious antisemites.

Your Party’s current hero is the 34-year-old mayor-elect of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who was hailed by Sultana for having secured a win “in the very heart of Empire,” thereby ensuring that “a new politics emerges.” Like Sultana, Mamdani comes from the ranks of the far left. Both of them are likely to discover in the coming years that their erstwhile comrades will try to grasp them in a bear hug, lest they be tempted to make the sorts of compromises needed to govern effectively.

Still, what unites these quarrelsome leftists is an unshakeable commitment to the Palestinian cause and a determination to make “Palestine” the standout issue in a package that also includes environmentalism, wealth redistribution and rejecting efforts to defend against Russian and Chinese destabilization efforts as “militarism” and “imperialism.” If history is any guide, then Your Party will go the same way as other initiatives in Britain to create a left-wing party outside Labour’s environs—straight into its trash bin.

Even so, as we’ve learned bitterly over the last two years, the far left doesn’t need to be in government to make life miserable, particularly for Jewish communities. They can do exactly that from their perches in the universities, municipal government, national legislatures and non-governmental organizations. Judging by the antics in Liverpool, Your Party may well be headed for organizational and electoral catastrophe, but beware. Its spirit will live on.

Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and director of FDD’s rapid response outreach, specializing in global antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Middle East/European Union relations. A London-born journalist with 30 years of experience, he previously worked for BBC World and has contributed to Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, Tablet and Congressional Quarterly. He was a senior correspondent at The Algemeiner for more than a decade and is a weekly columnist for JNS. Cohen has reported from conflict zones worldwide and held leadership roles at the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. His books include Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through 21st Century Antisemitism.

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