Will Corbyn allow Zionists to sabotage him again?

Asa Winstanley The Electronic Intifada 6 September 2025

A woman speaks to a crowded tent

Zarah Sultana speaking at the Beautiful Days festival on 17 August. The left-wing lawmaker criticized Corbynism’s failure to fight anti-Semitism smears.

Asa Winstanley

“I am an anti-Zionist,” the young UK parliamentarian said, “I always have been.”

I watched as the crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief and broke out in a spontaneous bout of cheering and applause for 31-year-old Zarah Sultana, a working class, former-Labour MP – now independent.

“Anyone who visits the occupied West Bank, anyone who sees the genocide happening in Gaza,” she continued, “anyone who understands what settler-colonialism is will find themselves also identifying as an anti-Zionist.”

Sultana’s audience had assembled in a packed Rebel Tent during the Beautiful Days music festival in Devon, in the southwest of England, last month. She was in conversation with journalist Matt Kennard, who asked about her views on Zionism as an ideology.

Her response electrified the audience and set off a firestorm in her nascent political movement.

Kennard had also asked her about the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism during the period that Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour Party. Sultana did not hold back.

“One of the things that we have to be honest about is some of the mistakes that were made under the Corbyn period. And adopting the IHRA [definition] was a mistake. Conflating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism was a mistake.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism is an anti-Palestinian document with roots in a project funded by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

For nearly a decade it has been a weapon for Israel and its lobby to suppress and criminalize Palestine solidarity the world over.

The Labour Party during Corbyn’s leadership adopted the document as policy, causing massive damage among his grassroots supporters.

Many were expelled from the party at the behest of the Israel lobby. Ultimately, Corbyn himself was also kicked out, suspended as a Labour MP in 2020, never to be allowed to return to the party.

Speaking to Kennard, Sultana implicitly criticized Corbyn’s team for their unwillingness to defend their political project – and the popular movement behind it – against what she termed “the smears that took place” in the corporate media.

“It shouldn’t have happened this way,” she argued, “there should have been robust challenge when the political establishment, the media establishment … attacked the Corbyn project, there should have been a more robust challenge to that.”

“We have to learn those lessons,” she said, pulling no punches. “We have to fight back and not give these fuckers an inch.”

The crowd went wild.

Cast adrift since his 2020 suspension as a Labour MP, Corbynism – the left-wing movement that raised Corbyn to the Labour leadership – was yearning for a more combative approach.

Speaking at the festival seemed to be a calculated move by Sultana.

She had already made similar points in an interview with author Oliver Eagleton, published earlier the same day by the New Left Review.

“We have to build on the strengths of Corbynism – its energy, mass appeal and bold policy platform – and we also have to recognize its limitations. It capitulated to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism,” she told Eagleton.

“When it came under attack from the state and the media, [Corbynism] should have fought back, recognizing that these are our class enemies. But instead it was frightened and far too conciliatory. This was a serious mistake … You cannot give these people an inch.”

But it was at the Rebel Tent that Sultana first came out explicitly as an anti-Zionist. Later that day she repeated her comment on Twitter/X.

Responding to a reporter from right-wing newspaper The Telegraph, Sultana wrote: “The smears won’t work this time. I say it loudly and proudly: I’m an anti-Zionist. Print that.”

In line with her position that Britain’s corporate media are class enemies, Sultana had initially refused to comment, the paper reported.

Along with other establishment outlets, The Telegraph published attacks on Sultana, including from such Israel lobby groups as the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

“Calling the recognition of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism a ‘capitulation’ is a grave insult,” Andrew Gilbert, the Board of Deputies vice-president told The Telegraph.

Your party?

The surge of national media attention for the now-independent lawmaker is driven by Sultana’s role – alongside Corbyn – in the launch of a new left-wing party.

Yet the initiative is already beset by internal rifts.

In July, Sultana – suspended from Labour a year earlier – gave up on ever being readmitted to Britain’s current ruling party.

She was suspended after opposing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s austerity policies.

Unlike other rebel lawmakers, who were eventually restored as Labour MPs, Sultana’s suspension remained in place – due to her vocal support for Palestine, she said.

On 3 July, Sultana declared she was quitting Labour to help Corbyn found the new left-wing party. Clearly there had been negotiations behind the scenes for some time.

“Jeremy Corbyn and I will co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country,” she wrote on Twitter. “Join us. The time is now.”

But according to sources close to Corbyn, the former Labour leader was unhappy with what he considered Sultana’s premature launch of the initiative, or the mention of “co-leading” anything.

Briefings and leaks – apparently from within the Corbyn camp – flowed to the right-wing press.

“Texts show Team Corbyn opposed new party minutes after launch,” The Times of London blared. Left-wingers expressed skepticism about the story, conscious of the media’s decade-long effort to divide the Corbynist movement.

But The Electronic Intifada understands that the reporting was broadly correct.

And the paper provided evidence: screenshots from a WhatsApp group of influential left-wing activists and former Corbyn staffers who had been secretly working to set up a new party in a small organization called Collective.

Other left-wingers in a second informal group close to Corbyn and his team – called the Organizing Committee – proposed a co-leadership with Sultana, which would set up the next generation of leadership.

At the next UK general election, likely in 2029, Corbyn will be 80. Sultana will be 35. Her backers argue she would offer the left a fresh start.

Indecision

Some on the left also want Corbyn to choose a successor because of questions over his leadership style – or lack thereof.

Notoriously indecisive, Corbyn often avoids public confrontation, preferring to act through intermediaries and aides. He often goes to ground rather than taking a controversial line.

I asked Corbyn this week for an interview with The Electronic Intifada Podcast to discuss what he thinks the new party’s policies on Palestine should be, as well as how best to fight back against the anti-Semitism smears.

Multiple WhatsApp messages were read by Corbyn himself – but he did not respond to the invitation. A third invitation was sent to his media officer Oly Durose, who responded that “Jeremy won’t be available to do this right now.” He offered no reason or alternative dates.

The right time never seems to come.

Corbyn last gave an interview to The Electronic Intifada in the summer of 2015, when he was first running to be Labour Party leader. Yet after he won, a new press team came in.

Many of Corbyn’s previous supporters told me they are frustrated with five years of prevarication over whether or not to launch a new party.

They say he could have launched one when he was first kicked out as a Labour MP in 2020, and would likely have won several seats in the 2024 election.

Corbyn was reluctant to decisively break with Labour, or lead a new party by himself. But he also doesn’t seem to want anyone else to lead one.

In the secret negotiations, the Collective, effectively Corbyn’s own faction, broadly opposed a co-leadership with Sultana.

Shortly after Sultana’s announcement that she would “co-lead” the new initiative with Corbyn, his powerful former chief of staff Karie Murphy purged the Collective’s WhatsApp group.

Among those removed were anti-war activist and former Respect party leader Salma Yaqoob and Andrew Feinstein, a former South African MP who ran against Keir Starmer in last year’s general election. Both are perceived to support a co-leadership.

According to The Times, Corbyn “was furious about Sultana’s post” announcing the new party and demanded she remove it – to no avail.

This was followed by an awkward silence.

For several weeks, Team Corbyn appeared to pretend that Sultana had never made her momentous declaration. Aside from one ambiguous post congratulating Sultana on leaving Labour, and stating that “real change is coming,” Corbyn said nothing about it in public and never confirmed the launch of a new party.

Three weeks after the younger MP’s announcement, Corbyn backed down. He went along with Sultana’s initiative, posting a joint statement with Sultana announcing the “Your Party” project.

“Your Party” is the initiative to set up a new party whose name is to be chosen at a founding conference expected to take place in autumn, possibly in November.

It is unclear who is in charge of organizing the conference.

Max Shanly, a left-wing former Labour Party youth organizer (who was himself targeted with “anti-Semitism” smears during the Corbyn period) has warned of “a coup of sorts in the working group responsible for the Your Party founding conference.”

A link to an online form asked supporters to submit their names, email addresses and postal codes to stay up to date with preparations for the conference.

To date, “Your Party” has a reported 800,000 email sign-ups. It remains to be seen how many will actually join the party. But if even only half join, it would be Britain’s largest political party.

And even before the party is formally launched, there are encouraging signs for its supporters. One recent poll found that one in three 2024 Labour voters would consider voting for a Corbyn-Sultana party.

Anti-Semitism smears

Many Corbyn supporters are frustrated by his refusal to fight back against the “left-wing anti-Semitism” smears that destroyed his leadership of Labour between 2015 and 2020.

As The Electronic Intifada reported for years – and as I documented in my book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn – instead of fighting the smears, Corbyn and his team often made concessions to this defamation campaign.

In practice, many of Corbyn’s most loyal supporters were purged from Labour – including high-profile figures such as Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson.

This ultimately played a major role in Corbyn’s downfall as Labour leader.

Feinstein has been adamant the new party should not make the same mistake.

He argues that “it is incredibly important that those of us who are involved in the emerging new party confront any attempts to weaponize anti-Semitism head on by calling it out for what it is: a shameful tactic of people with right-wing and far-right-wing political agendas.”

In 2023 Feinstein spoke at the launch of my book.

He called it “a detailed and precise and incredibly important corrective to the mendacious mainstream” and said that “I honestly believe that if Nelson Mandela was alive today and a member of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party that he would be expelled for his views on Israel and on fighting racism.”

Sultana’s comments at the Rebel Tent electrified the audience precisely because the mass movement that formed around Corbyn in 2015 had been scattered, directionless and politically homeless for five years.

Some of Corbyn’s critics on the left argue that he wasted years in the forlorn hope that he would be re-admitted to Labour.

This was never likely under Starmer, who declared during the 2020 Labour leadership campaign that he was a supporter of “Zionism without qualification” and is financially backed by pro-Israel lobbyists such as Trevor Chinn and Gary Lubner (the latter of whom is also a South African apartheid profiteer).

Corbyn had waited until the last possible minute to announce his independent candidacy in May 2024 – running for re-election to his parliamentary seat against the Labour candidate.

He hesitated for another year about starting a new party – despite encouraging signs from the 2024 general election that many voters wanted a left-wing, pro-Palestinian alternative.

Feinstein came second in Starmer’s constituency, and four other new independent candidates (aside from Corbyn) overturned Labour majorities, winning seats on platforms advocating an end to British involvement in the genocide in Gaza. Several others came close.

Yet if Sultana’s clear-eyed anti-Zionism delighted potential new party activists, Corbyn himself was not so pleased.

In an interview with Middle East Eye, Corbyn was asked what he thought of Sultana’s criticisms.

“I think it wasn’t really necessary for her to bring all that up in the interview, but that’s what she decided to do,” he responded.

He then prevaricated more, justifying his concessions and saying he had been “under a great deal of pressure to adopt the IHRA” definition by some of his closest supporters “and that was duly done.”

He didn’t comment on his views about Zionism.

In a 2018 opinion piece for the Guardian, Corbyn claimed there were “honorable” Zionists and that it was “wrong” to describe Zionism as racism.

The article was reportedly written by Corbyn’s influential adviser James Schneider, who appears to have driven much of the former leader’s disastrous approach to the issue.

After publication of this article, Corbyn’s former speechwriter Alex Nunns contacted The Electronic Intifada to deny that Schneider had written the initial draft of the article. He said instead that Schneider had made only “minimal editorial suggestions” to a draft.

Corbyn came under fire online from some of his own supporters for his perceived weakness on the issue, and for failing to stand up for Sultana when the Israel lobby attacked her for “anti-Semitism.”

But it wasn’t just online.

At a demonstration in London last week, one prominent Palestine activist and supporter of Your Party, asked Corbyn his view on Zionism.

In an encounter that later went viral online, Anika Zahir (known as “Ani Says” to her 126,000 social media followers) asked Corbyn: “Will you be coming out, like Zarah Sultana, and declaring yourself an anti-Zionist?”

Corbyn was visibly angry.

He deflected the question, replying that he was “here to speak for the Palestinian people … I’m sorry – that’s the point of being here today. Thank you very much.”

He walked away. His media officer Oly Durose also attempted to shut Zahir down, saying they “weren’t doing any more interviews.”

Corbyn even angrily asked Zahir to “turn the camera off please” – which she did.

The interaction – most of which was first posted online by anti-Zionist researcher David Miller – sparked controversy on X. Some Corbyn supporters said it was unfair given his years of Palestine solidarity work, while critics said he should have been able to answer a simple question.

Among Corbyn’s defenders was independent lawmaker (and Your Party supporter) Adnan Hussein, who (ironically) accused Zahir of a “witch hunt.” The following day he appeared to double-down, apparently accusing her of “extremely sinister actions against a good man.”

Zahir responded on social media that the backlash she was facing included Islamophobic vitriol. One X user even falsely claimed that she was David Miller’s wife.

“He is not a god”

Speaking to The Electronic Intifada this week, Zahir said she had supported Corbyn for years, and had even made a point of supporting him via postal vote in 2017’s general election, despite living out of the country at the time. She said she had followed his activism for Palestine since 2010.

“So I’m an expat in a completely different country, isolated from British politics, but as soon as I hear Jeremy Corbyn, I was ready to fill in the forms and make a vote,” she said.

But she said her encounter last week had now left her disillusioned: “I feel like I’ve just come out of a cult.”

She said she spent all her free time around activists who are “openly anti-Zionist and I see them putting in the work.” She said it wasn’t personal, but that she had wanted to know where the new party would stand on Zionism.

It was a mistake to put Corbyn on a pedestal, while expecting other politicians to answer activists’ questions, according to Zahir.

“I asked a politician a baseline question,” she said. “Suddenly we’re not holding accountability. Is that not how revolutions fail? When we don’t hold leaders accountable? Because every man is fallible.”

“He is not a god,” Zahir added.

The Court of Corbyn

Oly Durose, the media officer, is a former Labour parliamentary candidate who was endorsed in 2019 by David Lammy, now Britain’s foreign secretary.

Durose is far from the only Labour Party remnant still close to Corbyn.

James Schneider – the strategist who reportedly wrote the 2018 Guardian article that claimed it was “wrong” to call Zionism racism – is another.

He has reportedly been tapped to help organize the new party’s founding conference. Also said to be on that committee is Karie Murphy, who purged Feinstein and others from the Collective WhatsApp group.

Schneider is facing questions from some activists about a direct conflict of interest relating to his wife Sophie Nazemi – who works as the Labour Party’s director of communications.

Murphy’s record on the anti-Semitism smears, meanwhile, is also far from stellar.

As I showed in Weaponising Anti-Semitism, Murphy (like Corbyn) opposed part of the IHRA definition (the infamous “examples,” which included smearing opposition to Israel as a racist state as “anti-Semitism”). She was, for a time, supportive of Chris Williamson, the left-wing former MP who loyally backed Corbyn but was thrown under the bus before the 2019 election.

“Full retreat”

But in Williamson’s book, Ten Years Hard Labour, he wrote that Murphy went into “full retreat mode” along with the rest of Corbyn’s team and ultimately did not resist the plan to “investigate” and suspend Williamson for his entirely correct statement that Labour under Corbyn had climbed down on the issue.

The following year, Murphy publicly boasted of how many “anti-Semites” she had helped push out of Labour. Her examples of such “anti-Semitism”? Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone, both suspended for anti-Zionist statements.

If Corbyn genuinely wants to unite his movement behind a new party, he needs to admit his past mistakes. Failure to fight the anti-Semitism smears had disastrous effects on the left-wing movement.

That will happen again if Corbyn and his team do not change course.

Corbyn’s repeated climbdowns and U-turns on the issue made him look a weak leader to voters – not just to activists. Credible polling after the 2019 general election found that many voters thought “Jeremy Corbyn was not an appealing leader,” with divisions in Labour fueling that perception.

“They didn’t defend us”

The party suspensions, investigations, internal reviews, reports, media witch-hunts and expulsions woefully divided and demoralized the activist movement.

When I did my nationwide book tours between 2023 and 2025, I was surprised at the disillusionment and even anger at Corbyn among some of the grassroots.

These were ordinary people in local trade union branches, Palestine solidarity groups and community organizations, who had worked hard for Corbyn in the hope of changing the country for the better.

“We cannot let Corbyn and [his close ally John] McDonnell off the hook,” was one activist in Liverpool’s verdict. “They didn’t defend us. They didn’t defend themselves and we have to look elsewhere.”

Many pro-Corbyn activists were pushed out of their local Labour Party branches on the pretext of anti-Semitism – even under Corbyn’s own general secretary Jennie Formby.

They became thoroughly disillusioned with the ex-leader’s failure to fight back.

Such views are likely far more prevalent than Corbyn himself realizes, so it is no wonder that Sultana’s more combative approach is resonating.

Corbyn’s pandering to the Israel lobby within the Labour Party not only demoralized activists but did not help win elections.

Zionism is a maximalist ideology, which accepts nothing less than complete and utter fealty. Israeli embassy proxy, the Jewish Labour Movement (which Corbyn had coddled and supported), played a key role in driving Corbyn out of Labour.

Pro-Israel groups sabotaged and smeared him to the end. They and their allies are certain to do it again if he becomes leader of the new party.

Yet there is no sign that the former Labour leader is ready to start fighting back against Zionism and weaponized anti-Semitism smears.

If Corbyn – who retains a great deal of affection and respect for his solidarity with Palestine – can’t offer a more assertive form of leadership, then perhaps he should not stand in the way of those who can.

Updated after publication to add Alex Nunns statement.

Asa Winstanley is an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada.

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Comments

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Tom Hall replied on

Jeremy Corbyn went from being the face of the future to relegation as yesterday's man, without ever quite attaining immediacy of impact. He squandered an opportunity given perhaps once in a century to achieve real progressive change. In doing so, he actively colluded with some of the worst elements in Britain- the Zionist cabal and the corporate-owned media.

The UK left was expelled from Labour by Corbyn and his circle simply for standing for things he said he believed in. His day is done, and lessons have to be learned. A party that begins its life saddled with Corbyn and his crew will be doomed to repeat the Chronicle (if you'll pardon the term) of betrayal and self-mutilation that characterised his tenure as Labour leader. Nothing can be achieved by a new party that refuses to see its adversaries clearly as enemies to be defeated rather than opponents to be appeased. The forces of imperialism, of capitalism and of Zionism cannot be won over to a "kinder, gentler" approach. That sort of Corbynite hogwash has to go- and he with it. Because- paradoxically- sometimes you have to clean house before construction can properly begin.

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Ian Weniger replied on

Asa's article convinced me that I mustn't feel even slightly sad for Jezza. Now I worry that the LOTO (losers of the opposition?) Faction will work against Sultana to wreck YourParty before they even get to convention. Have our two glorious leaders even appeared together since July? I hope the revolutionary left is ready to recruit out of the wreckage if there's no new party left for a united front campaign on Palestine, immigration, the NHS or anything cos almost a million people want to see some national action for good on the ground.

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Peter Purich replied on

Excellent article. I'm still angry the loss of Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson - and I am not even a Briton (Canadian)! Obviously, Zarah Sultana is the leader - and the party - Briton's want.

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Ian Weniger replied on

Yes, this other Canadian liked Asa's article a lot, too. I didn't know Jezza waited three weeks before endorsing his own party. He seemed really calm with Owen Jones interview. No wonder TrashFuture was dragging Jezza last week, demanding a date for first convention already. If Avi Lewis and Yves Engler united to form a new party, they might generate the same vibe. Not enough members to challenge Carney or Polievre, but sufficient to create a class-struggle labour party that might take Quebec seriously enough to grow deeper roots than the Orange Wave.

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Jim McSporran replied on

What a farce! Corbyn is screwing any new left party before it even gets off the ground. Sultana should run a mile, get clear of Jeremy & take on a leading role alone.
Anti-Zionism is the ONLY morally right position to take. What's more calling for a single, democratic state is also vital. Corbyn could not take these stands within Labour & clearly isn't willing to do so now.
Let Jeremy go off quietly into the night.

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Maggie Fisher Lykiard replied on

amazing article Asa and what an eye-opener! and what a disappointment! this really should be circulated to anyone who's already signed up for Your Party or thinking about it. time for Jeremy to step aside (or speak out against Zionism) and Zara Sultana to take centre stage. My husband's read your Weaponising Anti-Semitism with shock and admiration.

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Ian Weniger replied on

Thanks for pointing out the catastrophic gaffe of YourParty.uk re Sep 13. We need a rebirth of the Anti-Nazi League from the 1970s. That came from the revolutionary left and I wonder if Zara Sultana MP is truly up for an extra-parliamentary movement. She supports activism between elections while Jezza's pals in the LOTO Faction are likely dead set against anything like that. YourParty might well be dead in the water but the DESIRE of hundreds of thousands for a socialist alternative can't also be dead. I hope someone takes that initiative very, very soon.

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Richard Lightbown replied on

There has always been a long queue to knock Jeremy Corbyn. So let me point out that he withstood unprecedented constant abuse from the media for four years. By comparison Farage's replacement at UKIP withstood milder abuse for 17 days, and Chukka Ummuna lasted two days (or it might have been four) before fleeing the field.

Then there were the constant rebellions from the Parliamentary Labour Party and concerted treason within party headquarters. And yet despite all that Corbyn, without any previous experience at cabinet level, managed to transform the party and fight a very successful 2017 election.

I agree that Corbyn played the antisemitism smears badly: I always thought he should have nipped that in the bud. Instead he faltered and allowed many of his closest allies to be expunged. I also felt he should have applied Machiavellian principles by clearing out early his worst enemies starting with Ian Austin (in the same way that Johnson snuffed out his rebels). But at the end of the day he was defeated principally by the party establishment. A united Labour Party could have seen off the antisemitism scam and defied the media. Corbyn had only one ally amongst the grandees in John Prescott, and he had virtually the whole of Millbank against him.

So I object to the cheap gibes in the comments here. Corbyn put up a good fight against impossible odds, and in doing so he reintroduced socialism onto the parliamentary agenda. After the mauling he got I think he deserved a little time off. At 76 (80 by the next election) he is far too old to be party leader, but he could be an excellent president who will attract many to the new party. His achievements far outweigh his failures. And while he needs to get his act together on where he stands on Zionism I also think a lot of his critics should put a sock in it and think of more positive things to do and say.

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Red Star replied on

"At 76 (80 by the next election) he is far too old to be party leader, but he could be an excellent president who will attract many to the new party. "

Agreed on both points - but that's one of the things that need to be sorted out now. And he needs to be clear on anti-zionism, admit that he made mistakes (for which we all suffered, not least the Palestinians) and to come out with a clear anti-zionist message. If he feels unable to do that, then perhaps he (and his advisers) need to bail out now, rather than risk wrecking the project before its barely got off the ground.

There'll be no room for hesitation or trying to appease the unappeasable in the run up to the next election.

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Ian Weniger replied on

Sorry from Vancouver BC Canada... when Max Shanly mentions the LOTO Faction, I'm guessing LOTO means "Leader Of The Opposition." What a giveaway for Jezza's oldest pals, tryna unring that bell. Maybe they could claim it means Lock Out/Tag Out? Laughing On The Outside? Lemmings Of The Outback? Local Office Training Officer? But maybe this is how Corbyn's fuzzy-logic road to socialism ends and a newer, firmer road begins for everyone.

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Mallory replied on

We can't wait for Corbyn or his new party. Join the Greens who have a leader in Zack Polanski who is fearless over Israel's imperialist expansion and Zionism.

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Ian Weniger replied on

The struggle against fascism and Israel will take more than joining the Greens, comrade. We need a united front like the Anti-Nazi League from the 1970s that successfully smashed the National Front and led to the demise of the BNP. Such a group is absolutely critical to draw the hundreds and thousands recoiling from YourParty into effective activity. If Nate can pitch to SUTR and other groups and create a reasonable organization, then we have a chance.

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