Sultana published a statement on Thursday accusing Labour and the Conservatives of offering “nothing but managed decline and broken promises”. She pointed to Reform – and its leader, Nigel Farage, a “billionaire-backed grifter” in her words – leading the polls as evidence of the political system’s failure. Framing the next general election as a battle between “socialism or barbarism”, a slogan famously used by the Marxist thinker Rosa Luxemburg, she called for urgent political change.
The MP’s statement strongly criticised some of Labour’s most controversial policies in government, including the two-child benefit cap, winter fuel payment cuts and welfare reform proposals that the government’s own impact assessment says would push many disabled people into poverty. She also condemned politicians across the spectrum for smearing “people of conscience trying to stop a genocide in Gaza as terrorists”.
Sultana ended the statement by urging supporters to “join us” in building what she presented as a new political alternative. As of this morning, more than 45,000 people had signed up as “actioners”. Together, these two themes – inequality and poverty, and anger over the war in Gaza – point to the communities this new party is hoping to mobilise and represent. But is there any appetite for this among the British electorate?
What does the polling say?
It’s hard to measure hypotheticals in polling, Joe Twyman told me, yet he warned: “The last 10 to 15 years of British politics have taught us that you cannot rule anything out, and that nothing can be guaranteed.”
On the question of whether there is a desire for a new leftwing party among the electorate, Twyman said: “There is always a desire for a new party … if there were a general election tomorrow and the following parties were running, the normal parties, and then a new party, left, right, whatever, they will always poll relatively well. And by relatively well, I mean around 10-15%.”
A recent poll by More in Common, shared with the New Statesman last month, backed this up, finding that a new party fronted by Corbyn could pick up 10% of the votes in an election. But Twyman was keen to temper expectations. “That’s because you’re asking in an abstract way: how would you hypothetically vote in a hypothetical election for a hypothetical party? But what people are actually answering is how they feel about the existing parties. We project our hopes and expectations on to a new party. People think, ‘Oh yeah, I’d vote for that,’ not because they like the new party, but because they don’t like the established ones. There’s nothing bad yet about this new party in the eyes of many people.”
He added that he speaks from experience. Twyman was the official pollster for the ill-fated Change UK party, made up of centrist defectors from Labour and the Conservatives in 2019. Ultimately, not a single candidate won a seat. “It lasted so short a time I didn’t even get the T-shirt,” he joked.
What does this mean for the Greens?
It has been particularly interesting to see how leading figures in the Green party have responded to the announcement of a new political party. Zack Polanski, the insurgent London assembly member running to lead the Greens on a radical, mass-membership “eco-populism” platform, quickly announced he would work with any party that wanted to stop Reform and challenge Labour. So did Mothin Ali, the most high-profile candidate currently running to become the party’s deputy leader.
Could we soon see a political pact between the Green party and this new organisation? James Meadway, an economist, former adviser to John McDonnell and now a Green party member, has been calling for exactly that, and he isn’t alone. He claims there are 60 seats up for grabs for an alliance between socialists and environmentalists.
But could this actually work? Twyman told me it is difficult to test the public appetite for formal alliances. “The average person in the street has not thought about this at all,” he said. “What you’re dealing with here is hypotheticals, but the reality can be very, very different.”
He said the mistake people often make is simply adding up parties. It’s the same trick Conservatives use when they add Reform’s vote to their own and claim that is what they would get if Reform didn’t stand. So for now, there is no reliable way to model how well such an alliance would actually perform.
Will it be a serious threat to Labour?
As for Labour leadership, they have so far brushed off the announcement of this new party, while some Labour backbenchers actively welcomed Sultana’s resignation. But could this new party prove to be a headache for Labour down the line?
“Everything’s a headache for Labour,” Twyman said. “If you’re Tony Blair and you’re 40 points ahead in the polls and you get complaints from your left flank, then you can laugh it off. If, on the other hand, you’re Keir Starmer and you have had a really tough first year, you’re trying to get things back on track, you recognise the risk that Reform represents on some of your voters … and now you’re thinking, well, maybe here’s another risk.”
Should Downing Street be worried as things stand right now? No, Twyman said. But he wouldn’t dismiss it completely, especially if the new party gains money, momentum, or defections.
He suggests the announcement of the party adds to growing evidence of fragmentation in British politics. “Reform and this new party didn’t create this wave of dissatisfaction, but what they’re being very effective at doing is riding it on to the beach.”
