Interview with Zarah Sultana
A void has opened up on the Left which the Green Party, under a radical new leader, Zack Polanski, is eager to fill. Corbyn humiliated Labour by standing successfully as an independent candidate in his old parliamentary seat of Islington North last July. Now he has been joined in a project to create a new socialist formation—interim name ‘Your Party’—by a vibrant young Muslim woman from Britain’s industrial midlands. Zarah Sultana was elected as a Labour member of parliament for Coventry South in 2019 but resigned from the party dramatically at the beginning of July this year. On July 24, a statement co-signed by her and Jeremy invited people to sign up as supporters of ‘Your Party’. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, co-founder of Jewish Voice for Labour, interviewed Zarah for Amandla!.
Amandla!: Not far short of a million people have signed up to support ‘Your Party’ led by you and Jeremy Corbyn. Aren’t you worried about splitting the Left vote, especially in a first-past-the-post electoral system?
Zarah Sultana: The only force splitting the Left is the Labour Party itself. Starmer has dragged it so far to the right that it’s barely recognisable: dancing to [Reform UK leader] Nigel Farage’s tune, reviving austerity and openly collaborating in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. When a Prime Minister mimics Enoch Powell by declaring Britain an “island of strangers,” that is not a Left party. Politically, morally, and electorally, Labour is dead.
That’s why hundreds of thousands are rallying behind a new, genuine left-wing political party. More than 750,000 people have already signed up because they refuse to see austerity, racism, and genocide carried out in their name. What we’re building with Jeremy Corbyn and many others is not a split, but the rebirth of genuine socialist politics in Britain.
A!: How do you see ‘Your Party’ formulating the structures and processes required for it to become a mass democratic organisation? Are there lessons to be learned from other parts of the world?
ZS: The most exciting thing about this moment is that it’s being built from below. With over 750,000 already signed up, we have a seismic opportunity to change British politics forever. Even the name will be chosen by members. While I’ve publicly said I’d like the party to be called ‘The Left’, it’s their decision.
But building a mass democratic party will take time. We need to learn from others: Syriza’s mistake in Greece was centralising too much power at the top and being unprepared for the pressures of office. Podemos in Spain grew fast but lost its grassroots vitality when the local “circles” were sidelined. In the US, Zohran Mamdani has shown how strong local organising combined with simple, material demands can beat the establishment.
So we must combine these lessons and give real power to branches, root ourselves in local struggles and build a structure that can’t be hollowed out from above. Done right, this will give millions a political home that is democratic to its core.
A!: Do you see it as primarily a parliamentary party, or is the main purpose to mobilise an extra-parliamentary movement? What is its core base of support?
ZS: This cannot just be a parliamentary project. Our strength lies in movements and trade unions as much as in Westminster. My own politics come from the streets and university campuses—fighting tuition fees, racism, and for Palestine—not from the so-called ‘corridors of power’ in parliament.
Our base is young people, racialised communities, tenants and workers fighting precarity and low pay. These struggles are deeply interlinked. If we can bring them together into a mass movement with trade unions at its heart, that’s how we build real social power. Elections will follow from that power, not the other way round.
A!: Since October 2023, solidarity with Palestine has become a key issue in Britain and in South Africa, as elsewhere in the world. How do you see ‘Your Party’ confronting Britain’s entrenched support for Israel and Zionism? How should it deal with controversies within the Left about facing up to malicious accusations of antisemitism?
Palestine, anti-imperialism and internationalism are at the very heart of this project. ‘Your Party’ will confront Westminster’s unconditional alignment with Israel head-on, not with caution or triangulation, but with distinct clarity. I am a proud anti-Zionist who believes in one secular, democratic state with equal rights for all.
ZS: Palestine, anti-imperialism and internationalism are at the very heart of this project. Britain is actively participating in genocide in Gaza. It is arming the apartheid state of Israel, providing it with intelligence to commit war crimes and shielding it diplomatically. ‘Your Party’ will confront Westminster’s unconditional alignment with Israel head-on, not with caution or triangulation, but with distinct clarity. Diplomatic and economic ties with Israel should be severed, there should be sanctions against Israeli officials across the board, the Israeli ambassador should be expelled, and a ban on all arms sales should take place immediately.
I am a proud anti-Zionist who believes in one secular, democratic state with equal rights for all. That means rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism, which conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism – even its own lead author, Kenneth Stern, admits it has been weaponised. Jeremy Corbyn was wrongfully smeared with these lies, and we will not retreat in the face of similar attacks. We must confront them head-on, call them what they are and refuse to let the establishment weaponise these accusations to disarm our movement. The smears won’t work this time.
A!: South Africa, like the UK and Europe, is experiencing growing xenophobia and a rise in political organising against immigration. How will you confront racism, defend migrants’ rights and reverse the trend towards working-class support for the right?
ZS: Racism and anti-migrant scapegoating are tools the ruling class uses to divide working people in Britain, South Africa, and across the world – a tale as old as time. Meanwhile, the real culprits for falling wages, collapsing public services and unaffordable housing are the billionaires and the politicians who serve them.
We have to confront racism and xenophobia directly, defend migrants’ rights without compromise, and expose the lie that migrants are to blame. It’s not migrants who cut wages or close hospitals, it’s bad bosses and self-serving politicians. Our answer is solidarity: uniting trade unions, tenants’ groups and anti-racist movements, and putting forward real solutions: secure jobs, council housing, investment in services and a mass redistribution of wealth and power. Only then can we stop the far right gaining a foothold among working-class communities by addressing their real material concerns and saying the real enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy.
A!: Britain remains locked into NATO and US foreign policy. How will ‘Your Party’ challenge UK imperialism abroad and growing militarism at home?
ZS: Ultimately, this will be decided democratically by members – but my own view is clear: Britain should withdraw from NATO and stop being the United States’ poodle that it has always been. From Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya, these forever wars have made the world less safe, while draining money from disabled people, pensioners and children to fund bombs abroad.
Right now, we are again living through the obscenity of a government slashing benefits for the most vulnerable in society while arming Israel’s genocide in Palestine. That is not defence; it is militarised barbarism, and the British public won’t accept it anymore. Our demand is simple: money for the poor, not for war.
A!: Environmental catastrophe is looming all over the globe. South Africa is confronting the question of a just transition. What is your approach to that issue in the UK?
ZS: The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time, and a just transition has to be at the centre of our politics. That means a Socialist Green New Deal: public ownership of energy, mass retrofitting of homes, affordable public transport, and a huge expansion of renewable energy. But it also means justice for those working in high-carbon industries.
We need a modern Lucas Plan for the country that includes repurposing skills and industries for socially useful, green production with guarantees on pay, conditions, and retraining. The devastation of coal communities in the 1980s cannot be repeated. A just transition must mean no worker or community is thrown onto the scrapheap. Tackling climate breakdown and delivering justice for workers must go hand in hand.
A!: South Africa, like the UK, has suffered from the neoliberal strategy of privatising public services. What is your position on reversing this and redistributing wealth?
ZS: Privatisation has hollowed out our public services. It has to be reversed and rolled back completely. Rail, mail, water and energy should be publicly owned, not milked by shareholders. And redistribution must be real: not crumbs from the table, but taking back wealth and power that has been stolen from working people. We’re not here to manage inequality, we’re here to end it.
A!: What lessons do you think the British Left can learn from struggles in the Global South, and what might ‘Your Party’s’ emergence represent for the international Left?
ZS: The Global South has taught the world how to resist: the struggles against apartheid, against imperialism, against debt and neoliberalism. They show that socialism must be internationalist, or it is nothing.
I deeply believe that our liberation is bound together: my freedom as a Muslim woman is tied to your freedom as a Jewish or Black or trans comrade. None of us are free, until all of us are free. That’s why our new formation must be part of a global movement of working-class internationalism, learning from struggles in the Global South as much as from the Global North. What we are building in Britain is not just national but a contribution to the global fight for socialism.
A!: What brought you to the decision to leave the Labour Party? Do you think others on the so-called ‘Labour Left’ will follow you?
ZS: If cutting winter fuel payments for pensioners, keeping the two-child benefit cap [which limits child-related benefit payments to the first two children in a family], cutting disabled people’s benefits, and arming genocide in Gaza aren’t your red lines, then, frankly, you don’t have red lines.
Those who see this reality and want to fight for genuine socialist politics are welcome. Those who don’t see that Rubicon having been crossed and think Starmer’s betrayals to the working class and enabling of genocide can be lived with—well, no thanks, we are not on the same side.
We in Britain must learn from South Africa, both good and bad lessons: the good includes the breadth and effectiveness of the South African liberation movement; the bad, crucially, is the capitulation to neoliberalism and the resultant State Capture. Our new movement/party must be broad but principled, democratic, transparent and accountable. In my opinion, Britain is already a captured state with my shameful MP, Keir Starmer, a puppet for his billionaire donors (which include South African Gary Lubner). Their interests are the maintenance of the status quo—including crucially no wealth tax, despite a dire cost of living crisis – and uncritical support for Israel and its genocide. It is the dismantling of this captured state that must drive the new party: equality, fairness and a focus on working people and the poorest at home, and peace, justice and equality abroad. We are fortunate in Britain to have a young, dynamic leader like Zarah Sultana and an experienced anti-poverty internationalist like Jeremy Corbyn to lead the new movement/party. But its success will also be dependent on the millions of Britons who want a better life for all.
Racism and anti-migrant scapegoating are tools the ruling class uses to divide working people in Britain, South Africa, and across the world – a tale as old as time. Meanwhile, the real culprits for falling wages, collapsing public services and unaffordable housing are the billionaires and the politicians who serve them.
