FORMER Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has reportedly addressed a meeting for a new left-wing political party.
The event saw discussions about the formation of a new party called Collective and was also attended by former Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, The Guardian reports.
Collective aims to act as an incubator for future leaders who could replace Corbyn as a left-wing rallying figure as well as targeting seats at the next General Election.
At a private meeting on Sunday, Corbyn gave the opening speech and founders said they would begin drawing up democratic structures for the new party.
A source close to Corbyn told The Guardian his attendance was not an official endorsement and that he had gone to “listen to and share a variety of views about the way forward for the left”.
One organiser told the paper the new left party would contest the next General Election and would “hopefully be a meaningful counterweight to Reform and the rightwing drift of the Labour party”.
Other attendees were said to include former North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll (above), Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman, director Ken Loach, Andrew Feinstein, the anti-apartheid activist who stood against Keir Starmer at the last election and Corbyn’s former chief of staff Karie Murphy.
Feinstein and Driscoll are said to be among a number of those present who are opposed to the creation of a new political party.
Pamela Fitzpatrick, the director of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice project and set to be the new movement’s director, said “now is the time” to become an established party.
She said: “We have seen the rise of the far right and already people are feeling politically homeless because they were so desperate for change but support for Labour is dropping so quickly. We need a real movement that can fill that gap.”
A strategy briefing prepared for Sunday’s meeting suggested a mass membership drive and attempting to gain trade union affiliations.
One source told The Guardian: “Lots of people have been involved in independent campaigns in the last election that did surprisingly well, even if they didn’t win.
“This was the beginning of a potential mass movement of the working class outside of the Labour Party.”
Corbyn (above), who was booted out of Labour by Starmer, has formed an alliance with four other independent MPs who were elected on left-wing, pro-Gaza platforms in July.
One attendee said that while the success of left-wing critics of Labour presented an “opportunity”, there was also “a challenge for the left to move beyond Jeremy [Corbyn]”.
They added: “I think that there is a real concern that if we, if the left, doesn’t do this now, and if we don’t act now, then the Starmer government is just going to open the door to Farage as the next prime minister.”
Starmer’s government is becoming increasingly unpopular, with a poll last week showing his popularity rating had plummeted to minus 14 points.
There is scepticism among some on the left about the wisdom of creating a new political party, after the failures of previous efforts such as George Galloway’s Workers Party GB and Left Unity.
In a piece for The Guardian earlier this year, Corbyn said he intended to back a grassroots movement “capable of challenging the stale two-party system” which would “eventually run in elections”. But he also warned that to create a new, centralised party, based around the personality of one person, is to put the cart before the horse”.
