Could Jeremy Corbyn's new party shake up politics?

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he is launching a new political party, promising to "build a democratic movement that can take on the rich and powerful".

It doesn't have a name yet but the MP for Islington North says the plan is for the group to fight May's local elections ahead of the next general election, which is likely to take place in four years' time.

The new venture has the potential to shake-up the political landscape, with Labour and the Greens appearing to be the most at risk of losing votes.

Polling of around 2,000 Britons by More In Common last month - on whether they would vote for a hypothetical Corbyn-led party - suggested it could pick up 10% of the vote.

This would potentially take three points off Labour's vote share and extend Reform UK's lead in the polls by the same margin.

The pollster's UK director, Luke Tryl, says that if this plays out at a general election Labour risks losing seats outright to Corbyn's party, while a splintering of the left-wing vote could also allow Reform UK or the Conservatives to make gains.

"In an era of very fragmented politics, small shares could make the difference across the board, and it is totally conceivable that the performance of this left-wing party could be the difference between a Labour-led government and a Nigel Farage Reform-led government on current polling," adds Mr Tryl.

Corbyn's party could gain support in parts of the country where pro-Gaza independents have performed strongly such as Birmingham, parts of east and north London and north-west England.

More In Common's research suggests a Corbyn-led party would be most popular with those aged under 26 so inner-city student areas could also be key targets.

WIKI

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn was born on 26 May 1949 in Chippenham, Wiltshire, the son of mathematics teacher Naomi Loveday (née Josling; 1915–1987) and electrical engineer and power rectifier expert David Benjamin Corbyn (1915–1986)

His parents were Labour Party members and peace campaigners who met in the 1930s at a committee meeting in support of the Spanish Republic at Conway Hall during the Spanish Civil War.

When Corbyn was seven, the family moved to Pave Lane, Shropshire, where his father bought Yew Tree Manor, a 17th-century farmhouse which was once part of the Duke of Sutherland’s Lilleshall estate. Corbyn attended Castle House School, an independent preparatory school near Newport, Shropshire, before becoming a day student at Newport’s Adams Grammar School at the age of 11.

He achieved two A-Levels at grade E, the lowest possible passing grade, before leaving school at 18.

He worked as a trade union organiser for the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, where his union was approached by Tony Benn and “encouraged ... to produce a blueprint for workers’ control of British Leyland”

Corbyn was appointed a member of a district health authority and in early 1974, at the age of 24, he was elected to Haringey Council from South Hornsey ward. After boundary changes in 1978 he was re-elected in Harringay ward as councillor, remaining so until 1983

The Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch monitored Corbyn for two decades, until the early 2000s, as he was “deemed to be a subversive”. According to the Labour Party, “The Security Services kept files on many peace and Labour movement campaigners at the time, including anti-Apartheid activists and trade unionists”

Corbyn was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the constituency of Islington North, in February 1982

At the 1983 general election he was elected MP for the constituency

Shortly after being elected to Parliament, he began writing a weekly column for the left-wing Morning Star newspaper. In May 2015, he said that “the Star is the most precious and only voice we have in the daily media”. In February 2017, the Morning Star said of Corbyn: “He has been bullied, betrayed and ridiculed, and yet he carries on with the same grace and care he always shows to others – however objectionable their behaviour and treatment of him might be.”

He supported the 1984–85 miners’ strike. In 1985, he invited striking miners into the gallery of the House of Commons; they were expelled for shouting: “Coal not dole”. At the end of the strike Corbyn was given a medallion by the miners in recognition of his help.

In 1990, Corbyn opposed the poll tax (formally known as the Community Charge) and nearly went to jail for not paying the tax. He appeared in court the following year as a result.

In 1984, Corbyn and Ken Livingstone invited Adams, two convicted IRA volunteers and other members of Sinn Féin to Westminster. He was criticised by the Labour Party leadership for the meeting, which took place two weeks after the IRA’s bombing of the Conservative Party leadership that killed five people.

In 1987, Corbyn attended a commemoration by the Wolfe Tone Society in London for eight IRA members who were killed by Special Air Service soldiers while attacking a Royal Ulster Constabulary police station in Loughgall, County Armagh. At the commemoration, he told his fellow attendees that “I’m happy to commemorate all those who died fighting for an independent Ireland” and attacked the British government’s policies in Northern Ireland, calling for all British troops to be withdrawn from the region.

A short time after IRA plans to bomb London were foiled in 1996, Corbyn invited Adams to the House of Commons for a press conference to promote Adams’ autobiography, Before the Dawn. Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam and Labour leader Tony Blair condemned the invitation, with Mowlam arguing that it was detrimental to the peace process, and Blair threatening disciplinary action. Adams cancelled the event, to save further embarrassment to Corbyn and to avoid negative publicity.

Corbyn has called for Tony Blair to be investigated for alleged war crimes during the Iraq War. In July 2016, the Chilcot Report of the Iraq Inquiry was issued, criticising Blair for joining the United States in the war against Iraq.

he signed the second Cairo Declaration in December 2003, which said “The Iraqis themselves are now engaged in a titanic struggle to rid their country of occupying forces. The Palestinian intifada continues under the most difficult circumstances.

The Labour campaign in the 2017 general election focused on social issues such as health care, education and ending austerity.

Although Labour started the campaign as far as 20 points behind, and again finished as the second largest party in parliament, it increased its share of the popular vote to 40%, resulting in a net gain of 30 seats and a hung parliament. This was its greatest vote share since 2001. It was the first time Labour had made a net gain of seats since 1997, and the party’s 9.6% increase in vote share was its largest in a single general election since 1945. This was partly attributed to the popularity of its 2017 Manifesto that promised to scrap tuition fees, address public sector pay, make housing more affordable, end austerity, nationalise the railways and provide school students with free lunches.

Many Hindus living in the UK saw Corbyn’s attitude towards Hindus to be heavily influenced by Pakistani Muslim leaders of his party, with whom he shared a common pro-Palestinian stance.

Due to the plans to nationalise the “big six” energy firms, the National Grid, the water industry, Royal Mail, the railways and the broadband arm of BT, the 2019 manifesto was widely considered as the most radical in several decades

The 2019 general election was the worst defeat in seats for Labour since 1935, with Labour winning just 202 out of 650 seats, their fourth successive election defeat. At 32.2%, Labour’s share of the vote was down around eight points on the 2017 general election and is lower than that achieved by Neil Kinnock in 1992, although it was higher than in 2010 and 2015

On 18 February 2022, in the week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Corbyn alongside 11 Labour MPs cosigned a statement from the Stop the War Coalition opposing any war in Ukraine. The statement said that “the crisis should be settled on a basis which recognises the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia’s security concerns”, that NATO “should call a halt to its eastward expansion”, and that the British government’s sending of arms to Ukraine and troops to eastern Europe served “no purpose other than inflaming tensions and indicating disdain for Russian concerns”. The statement’s authors also said that they “refute the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance”.

On the evening of 24 February, the first day of the invasion, Labour chief whip Alan Campbell wrote to all 11 Labour MPs who had signed the statement, requesting that they withdraw their signatures. All 11 agreed to do so the same evening. Corbyn and fellow former Labour independent MP Claudia Webbe did not withdraw their signatures from the statement, though David Lammy urged Corbyn to do so

Corbyn responded to Keir Starmer’s claim of knowing the party would lose the 2019 election by saying “Well, he never said that to me, at any time.

In 2023, The Daily Telegraph reported that most of the tax policies in Corbyn’s 2019 general election manifesto had been implemented by the winning Conservative government, including a higher corporation tax, a windfall tax on oil companies, a reduction in annual tax allowances on dividend income, raising income tax on high earners, and introducing a digital services tax on online retailers.

Corbyn lives in the Finsbury Park area of London. He has been married three times and divorced twice, and has three sons with his second wife. In 1974, he married his first wife, Jane Chapman, a fellow Labour Councillor for Haringey and now a professor at the University of Lincoln. They divorced in 1979. In the late 1970s, Corbyn had a brief relationship with Labour MP Diane Abbott.

In 1987, Corbyn married Chilean exile Claudia Bracchitta, granddaughter of Ricardo Bracchitta (Consul-General of Spain in Santiago), with whom he has three sons. He missed his youngest son’s birth as he was lecturing National Union of Public Employees members at the same hospital. Following a difference of opinion about sending their son to a grammar school (Corbyn opposes selective education), they divorced in 1999 after two years of separation, although Corbyn said in June 2015 that he continues to “get on very well” with her. His son subsequently attended Queen Elizabeth’s School, which had been his wife’s first choice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn

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