Labour loses first councillor to Corbyn and Sultana party as more than 600,000 people sign up

Grace Lewis, a 22-year-old Labour member of Coventry City Council, became the first councillor to resign from Keir Starmer’s party on Friday to join Corbyn and Sultana’s new party.

Corbyn and Sultana, who now both sit as independent MPs after Sultana quit the Labour party last month, started the new political movement to provide an alternative to Labour on a national level.

Despite a slightly messy launch and lack of a name, the party has seen 600,000 people sign up to the its mailing list across the UK in just one week.

While these people aren’t members of the party, which is yet to be officially established, it shows the movement has significant momentum behind it. Recent polls indicate that the party could have the support of 18% of the electorate at launch.

In another blow to Labour, Sir Keir Starmer's party has now lost its first elected politician to the left-wing alternative.

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Cllr Lewis said in a statement: “Today, after five-and-a-half years, I resigned my Labour Party membership. I will now serve the residents of Westwood on Coventry city council as an independent.

“The Labour Party promised ‘change’, yet since entering government, Labour has cut support for disabled people, kept the Tories’ cruel two-child benefit cap and slashed winter fuel payments, driving record numbers into poverty.

“They have joined Reform in targeting minorities, including migrants and trans people, all whilst being active participants in the genocide in Gaza, ramping up spending on war, and arming Israel – criminalising peaceful protesters in the process.”

Lewis also pledged to support Corbyn and Sultana in setting up their new party, saying she welcomed the launch of a party “rooted in working-class communities and committed to real change”.

Corbyn and Sultana’s party, going by the placeholder name ‘Your Party’, sits on the Left of the Labour party, and promises to deliver a “mass redistribution of wealth and power”, pledging a wealth tax, public ownership of energy, water, rail and mail, and a massive council-house building programme.

Cllr Lewis said she felt “a sense of genuine political hope for the first time in a long time” when the party was announced.

She said: "This is not the change people voted for, not the change I joined the Labour Party for when I was 16, and certainly not the change which people deserve.

"The Labour-led Coventry City Council has failed to stand up for working people.

"When workers fight for decent living standards, the Labour council responds by strike-breaking, undermining unions—the very foundations which the party was founded to defend."

Echoing Corbyn’s old campaign slogan from when he was the Labour leader, she added: “From the picket line and demonstrations to the council chamber, I’ll continue to fight for peace, justice, and to put wealth and power into the hands of the many, not the few.

“Together, let’s build the alternative. Join us at YourParty.UK.”

Responding to Cllr Lewis’s defection, Ms Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, said: “Grace is a formidable force in local government and I’m proud to welcome her to the new political party we’re building.

“Across the country, millions feel politically homeless. Labour is dead. To councillors everywhere – are you really delivering the change Keir Starmer promised?”

Labour has shrugged off the new, rapidly growing political movement, saying: "The electorate has twice given its verdict on a Jeremy Corbyn led party," referring to Corbyn’s two general election losses as Labour leader in 2017 and 2019.

The new party will hold a founding conference this autumn, where the policies, structure and name of the party will be decided.

An email to those who have signed up to the mailing list on Friday said: “This conference will be the moment where, together, we will decide the direction, structure and platform of this party.

“To make it as accessible and democratic as possible, the conference will be hybrid – both in-person and online – so that everyone can take part in the decisions that will shape its future. Make no mistake: whatever the name, it is always going to be your party.”