“I oppose the blood-soaked hands of this government trying to silence us”, the Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana told the Commons. “So I say this loudly on Wednesday 2^nd of July. We are all Palestine…” The deputy speaker cut her off before she could say the word “Action”, and Hansard has removed the whole final sentence following the group’s proscription under terrorism legislation. But everyone watching understood her intent.

The next evening, after a fractious Zoom call with Jeremy Corbyn, Sultana tried to bounce the former Labour figurehead into setting up a new left party in which she would be “co-leader”. Corbyn has promised that such a party will be formed.

Shortly afterwards, over a picture of Nigel Farage, Sultana posted that “in 2029 the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism”. How setting up a fringe party to take votes away from Labour will help keep Farage out of Downing Street, Sultana has yet to explain.

But the threat of a split progressive vote is real – not just because the new party might eventually emerge, but because the Muslim vote, which has traditionally been loyal to Labour, has been pulled towards the Greens and independent Islamist candidates over the Gaza issue.

Before exploring how Labour might respond, it is worth noting the recklessness and duplicity of Sultana herself. Palestine Action has smashed Jewish shops and daubed them with graffiti which, under all interpretations of the IHRA definition, match the label anti-Semitism. Its US wing – now named Unity of Fields – praised the murder of two Israeli diplomats by a lone gunman and launched a campaign for his release. She herself, together with Corbyn, sits on the ruling council of the Progressive International, which created the notorious target map that was cited when PA were banned.

Even if I supported the idea of a new left party – and I do not – I don’t think announcing that “we are all” associated with such actions is going to help it attract a broader following. To the contrary, it looks designed to attract the kind of people who have been toting Iranian and Hezbollah flags on demonstrations, and chanting “Death to the IDF”.

The Socialist Workers Party was quick to support Sultana’s new venture, and to offer its members as election candidates. On 9 October 2023, two days after the Hamas spree of murder, torture and rape, Socialist Worker urged its readers to “Rejoice as Palestinian resistance humiliates racist Israel”. Again, I don’t think that’s going to play well on the doorstep.

On election day in 2019 I campaigned with Zarah Sultana – and I was glad to see her reselected as an MP in the run up to 2024, because I believe Labour should have a vibrant socialist left, despite my disagreements with her version of it. I noted too that, having foolishly signed a statement blaming Nato for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she was first out of the blocks in un-signing it when Labour threatened her with expulsion.

What heartened me the most was that, together with two dozen fellow members of the Socialist Campaign Group, she stood for election last year on Labour’s manifesto, which included “an unshakeable commitment to Nato and our nuclear deterrent”, “standing up for our armed forces and veterans”, and pledged both to recognise a Palestinian state and to guarantee the “long-term security of Israel”.

Maybe, as with the attack on Nato, she didn’t really mean any of it. And again, one assumes that on her inaugural grilling by a serious TV interviewer, these discrepancies might make their way into the conversation.

The problem she faces – as do Corbyn, the four Muslim sectarian MPs and the far left groups that have pledged to support them – is this: the first time they try to agree a political programme, they will explode. 

The Socialist Worker Party supports the Birmingham refuse collectors’ strike, whereas Ayoub Khan MP, a dedicated Corbynite, called for troops to go in and break it. Sultana supports trans rights and is a feminist. The four Muslim MPs have voted against placing VAT on private schools, because it discriminates against faith schools.

To resolve the problem of how you hold together an alliance of feminists, Islamists, strikebreakers and Trotskyists, some have suggested they should agree on a “basic” set of principles – like “welfare not warfare” and support for Gaza – while allowing individual candidates to say what they like. 

But as Corbyn himself found, that is a recipe for reputational suicide. As soon as you form a political party, every candidate becomes liable for the lunatic outpourings of their comrades. And of course, the finances come under scrutiny, in a way Corbyn’s two limited companies and the various independent candidates have avoided.

But it is not enough for Labour to assume this new left entity will implode. It needs to work hard to rebuild trust and loyalty among young, progressive, Green-inclined voters. On the doorsteps, even in July 2024, it was clear that many Green and independent voters are using their votes as an expression of their values. They have ceased caring whether Labour wins, or even whether they get a Tory MP as a result of splitting the vote.

Labour needs to make voters care about the outcome of the next election – at national level, in their constituency and their council. The way to do that is to spell out clearly, to each part of the voter coalition Labour needs to create, what they will get – and what they will have to give up in order to build an electoral alliance broad enough to keep Farage out.

To those tempted to dabble in the politics of nice Jeremy, fiery Zarah and the anti-Semitic Leninist hacks who will be their foot soldiers, I say: think twice. A party with no clear programme, and a figurehead prepared to declare her support for a group that organises serious criminal actions, is only going to have one effect: to put Farage into Downing Street and to disgrace the word “socialism” in the eyes of working class people.