Sir Keir Starmer faces the threat of a new left-wing ‘real socialist’ party amid mounting anger from Labour backbenchers over controversial welfare cuts.
The Mail on Sunday has learnt that disaffected Labour backbenchers are already being approached to consider joining a new ‘radical Left’ political movement.
Sources said that to inflict maximum damage on Sir Keir, the proposed new party – master-minded by supporters of ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – could be launched during Labour’s national conference this Autumn.
The plans emerged amid forecasts that so angry are Labour backbenchers at their Government’s plan to slash disability benefits, that scores of MPs could refuse to back it at next month’s crucial Commons vote.
Talk of the new party also comes just days after Mr Corbyn – who now sits as an Independent MP – said he was ‘determined there will be, in short time, a strong alternative democratic socialist, left-wing voice that brings people together’.
However, it is understood that Mr Corbyn himself may not himself lead the new party, with sources suggesting that role should go to a younger figure such as Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, currently suspended from the Parliamentary part for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
The spectre of a break-away left-wing movement comes with Sir Keir potentially facing the biggest rebellion of his premiership so far over plans which could mean cutting personal independence payments (PIP), the main disability payment in England and Wales, for about 800,000 people.
So worried is Sir Keir that Labour whips have reportedly threatened that anyone who simply abstained would never get a ministerial job while MPs voting against would lose the Party whip.
Last night, one senior Labour MP said those reports were ‘rubbish’ and cautioned that if the revolt was huge, it would not be possible to suspend ‘100 or so MPs’.
Even moderate backbenchers have privately vented their anger at the cuts while Left-winger Andy McDonald has branded the proposals ‘a huge attack on the incomes of disabled people’.
However, the Daily Mail highlighted last week how spending on sickness benefits was on course to rocket by £18 billion a year to reach £70 billion by the next general election if nothing was done to trim the bill.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has warned that the country’s benefits system faced collapse if costs continued to escalate.
Long-mooted plans for the new party are understood to have accelerated in the last few weeks amid mounting anger among Labour backbenchers over government policy, including the now-abandoned decision to scrap Winter Fuel payments for many pensioners and the proposed disability benefit cuts.
And last weekend, Mr Corbyn, already part of a five-strong ‘Independent Alliance’ group at Westminster, appeared to acknowledge that people’s frustration that ‘we didn’t found a new political party’ would soon be answered.
Sources close to the ex-Labour leader also told this newspaper that there were now ‘very, very active discussions’ about setting up the new movement.
However, they dismissed reports that the party would be called ‘Arise’ after a former Corbyn aide registered such a party with the Electoral Commission just over a week ago.
Last night, Starmer allies played down any threat from such a new party, suggesting ‘a couple of ‘ current Labour MPs were more likely to defect to the Greens than join a Corbynsta-style group.
But one longstanding Labour MP said: ‘It’s all very well for Starmer’s acolytes to dismiss the threat of a proper socialist party but the PM is playing with fire.
‘After the winter fuel fiasco and now this attack on disability benefits, he’s leaving a vacuum on the Left of British politics and someone’s going to fill it.’ OK?
Mr Corbyn was originally suspended from Labour in 2020 after claiming the scale of antisemitism in the party had been overstated and later expelled for standing as an Independent against an official Labour candidate.
