British new party: Corbyn says it’s ‘just the beginning’ as new party overtakes Labour amid surging youth support

Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station.
Photo: Morning Star online

Jeremy Corbyn (a British politician who has been Member of Parliament since 1983. Now an independent, Corbyn had been a member of the Labour Party from 1965 until his expulsion in 2024) vowed “this is just the beginning” after half a million people signed up to his new political party in three days amid a surge in support for the former Labour leader among 18-24 year-olds.

Mr Corbyn, who launched the new left party with fellow ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana on Thursday, said: “For too long, people have been denied a real political choice. Not anymore.

“Half a million people have already signed up, but this is just the beginning. We are an unstoppable movement for equality, democracy and peace — and we are never, ever going away.”

The half-a-million mark was reached on Sunday and is expected to continue to climb.

It is already well over the Labour Party’s reportedly “haemorrhaging” latest membership figures, which stood at 309,000 in February.

And it is also higher than the combined total of Reform UK’s 227,592 and the Conservatives 123,000 this month.

Polling has meanwhile showed that the independent MP is far more popular among young voters than Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

Sir Keir’s approval ratings are poor across all age groups, sinking to minus 30 among young people.

Polling on the day Mr Corbyn announced the new party, however, showed an approval rating of plus 18 for the left-wing politician within the age bracket.

Ministers announced plans to give the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds as the Prime Minister’s approval rating hit an all time low of minus 43 following the £5 billion welfare U-turn earlier this month.

The polling, first reported by the Sunday Times, also found that seven in 10 voters think Sir Keir’s government is at least as chaotic as the Tories’ previous term just a year in. One in three voters said they believed that it is even more so.

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