Ex-UK Labour leader Corbyn launches new anti-Israel party

By AFP and ToI Staff 24 July 2025, 4:07 pm

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Former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, center, joins pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel supporters preparing to march through central London, on May 18, 2024, at a demonstration mourning the 76th anniversary of Israel's establishment and calling for an end to arms sales to Israel. (Photo by BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP)

Former UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn says he is forming a new political party alongside fellow ex-Labourite Zarah Sultana, with the pair’s strident opposition to Israel at the top of the new faction’s agenda.

Corbyn, who lost two elections as Labour leader in 2017 and 2019, and Sultana, who has led calls for Britain to freeze arms sales to Israel, say the new outfit will be called Your Party.

“It’s time for a new kind of political party. One that is rooted in our communities, trade unions and social movements,” they say in a joint statement.

In their announcement, they called for a “mass redistribution of wealth and power” and said they would “keep demanding an end to all arms sales to Israel.”

They also committed to a “free and independent Palestine.”

Corbyn, 76, was suspended by Labour in 2020 after he refused to fully accept the findings of a rights watchdog’s probe into claims that anti-Semitism had become rampant within Labour’s ranks under his leadership.

Corbyn, who was accused of having ties to Hezbollah and Hamas, said anti-Semitism had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons.”

Sultana was suspended by Labour for what she said were her pro-Palestinian views and left the party earlier this month. Both she and Corbyn, who was expelled for Labour, remain members of Parliament.