Jeremy Corbyn said “discussions are ongoing” about the shape of a prospective new political party, after an ex-Labour MP claimed they would “co-lead the founding” of a new outfit.
Former Labour leader Mr Corbyn said that the “foundations of a new kind” of party will “take shape” soon.
Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, who has sat as an independent since last year, said on Thursday that she was resigning from Labour to lead on establishing a new party with Mr Corbyn, alongside other independent MPs and campaigners.
It is understood that questions over the leadership and the timing of an announcement had not been settled before Ms Sultana’s statement about working on the founding of a new party on Thursday.
In a statement more than 17 hours after Ms Sultana’s, Mr Corbyn said: “The democratic foundations of a new kind of political party will soon take shape.
“Discussions are ongoing – and I am excited to work alongside all communities to fight for the future people deserve.”
He also said that Ms Sultana will “help us build a real alternative”.
Ms Sultana, who had the Labour whip suspended last year, said on Thursday that she was quitting Sir Keir Starmer’s party and would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with Mr Corbyn.
She said that “Westminster is broken but the real crisis is deeper” and the “two-party system offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises”.
The Coventry South MP also attacked the Government’s policies on welfare and Gaza.
Ms Sultana was one of seven MPs who had the Labour whip suspended last summer when they supported an amendment to the King’s Speech which related to the two-child benefit cap.
Four of the seven had the whip restored earlier this year but Ms Sultana was not among them.
Mr Corbyn led Labour from 2015 to April 2020, stepping down after the party’s loss at the 2019 general election.
He was suspended from Labour in 2020 after he refused to fully accept the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings that the party broke equality law when he was in charge, and said antisemitism had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”.
He was blocked from standing for Labour at last year’s general election and expelled in the spring of 2024, after saying he would stand as an Independent candidate in his Islington North constituency, which he won with a majority of more than 7,000.
Last year Mr Corbyn formed the Independent Alliance with other Independent members of the Commons.
On Friday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper appeared to shrug off Ms Sultana’s announcement, and said that the MP had “always taken a very different view to most people in the Government” on several issues, adding: “That’s for her to do so.”
But during a series of broadcast interviews, Ms Cooper declined to be drawn on whether she was concerned the new party could pose a threat to Labour.
Asked whether she was concerned, the Home Secretary told LBC: “People have always had different views, and I just disagree with the views and the approaches they’re taking.”
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