Zarah Sultana says new party is aiming to ‘run government’

Zarah Sultana said the new left political party she founded with Jeremy Corbyn aims to “run” the government despite high-profile divisions emerging within the movement.

Member of Parliament for Coventry South He left the Labor Party in July He said he wanted to form a new group operating under the temporary name of your party and that this was not a protest but a “40-year project”.

His comments follow a difficult start for the party, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of members but has been dominated by controversy over its leadership, finances and even its name.

Speaking to Nick Robinson on the BBC’s Political Thought programme, the MP said he wanted to “change people’s lives for the better”, which required “gaining state power”.

Sultana told the BBC the new movement would be “socialist, democratic and member-led”.

And if elected, he will focus on “expropriation, building social housing, providing people with good and secure jobs”.

He added: “I am in politics because of the desire to change people’s lives for the better, and that means winning state power, which means actually running the government.

“We are building a left party that can win power and ensure justice.”

He added: “This is a 10, 20, 30 year project.”

In the four months since its announcement, the newly formed party has been besieged by disagreements among founding members and threats of legal battles.

Sultana’s interview comes after three officials left the board of MoU Operations Ltd (MoU), which was set up to oversee your party’s finances and membership, and said they would leave him as sole director.

resignations follow reports The party is still trying to recover around £800,000 from donations and data held in the MoU.

The problems stem from a split in the party after Sultana launched a membership portal through her official email account and received payments and data from an alleged 20,000 people.

Corbyn described the emails as “unauthorised” and called on his supporters to cancel direct debits.

The membership portal was later changed, but not before the dispute escalated into legal threats and accusations of a “sexist boys’ club”.

The two later reconciled.

While Sultana pressed for the party to be called the Party of the Left, Corbyn hinted that the Party name could remain.

Members will vote on the official name at the founding conference in Liverpool next month.

Sultana said he hoped to lead the new party alongside Corbyn but would “throw his hat in the ring” if members elected a single leader when the party’s constitution was adopted at the conference.

During the interview, Sultana accused Reform England leader Nigel Farage of having “all the hallmarks of a fascist politician”.

“I have legitimate concerns about what Nigel Farage’s government might do to unionists, working-class communities, minority communities and LGBT people,” he said.

“When someone attacks trade union rights, when someone does not support minority communities, when someone tries to take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights so they can get away with anything, that is descending into fascism,” he said.

He said the surge in support that has given Reform Britain a 10-point lead in national polls reflected a wider crisis in politics caused by voters left “angry” by years of austerity.

Reform UK has been contacted for a response.

Sultana said his new party would work with the resurgent Green Party to “stop the reform.”

When asked if he would join the Greens, Sultana said he liked new leader Zack Polanski, “but we are a different party.”

“There will be these alliances and electoral agreements in the future,” he added.

Asked whether his move would divide the left and take away votes from Labour’s traditional centre-left voting base, Sultana said Labor “probably should be worried about that before it leads to genocide and moves on to austerity”.

“The Labor Party was actually quite pleased because they thought the left had nowhere else to go, and now the left has options.”

You can listen to Zarah Sultana’s interview with Nick Robinson on the latest episode of Political Thought on Saturday at 17:30 on BBC Radio 4. on BBC Sounds.