Discussions ongoing about new party, says Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn has said “discussions are ongoing” after ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced she was quitting the party to co-found a new left-wing party with him.

The ex-Labour leader congratulated Sultana on her “principled decision” to leave and said he was “delighted that she will help us build a real alternative”.

He said “the democratic foundations of a new kind of political party will soon take shape” but stopped short of providing details as to who would lead it.

Talks have been going on under the radar for some time to turn the small group of independent pro-Gaza MPs, co-ordinated by Corbyn, into an actual political party which could stand candidates at next year’s local elections.

Asked about her permanently leaving the Labour movement, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says Sultana has “always taken a very different view to most people in the government on a lot of different things, and that’s for her to do so”.

Criticisms levelled by Sultana at the government include failing to help people in poverty.

Cooper says she “strongly disagrees” with her former partymate.

“We’re one year on from the Labour government being elected and as the prime minister said a year ago that change doesn’t happen at the flick of a switch, but it starts straightaway,” the home secretary says.