by ZARAH SULTANA
Zarah Sultana is among Britain’s most prominent socialist leaders. Born in Birmingham in 1993, she became politically active in the student movement and later in the upsurge of Corbynism: serving on the national executive of Young Labour, working as a community organiser for the party and eventually running for parliament, where she now represents Coventry South. Her election coincided with the beginning of Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership, which she has long excoriated for its reactionary outlook and petty authoritarianism. Over the past year her profile has increased significantly thanks to her trenchant opposition to the Starmer government’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. Her dissent led to her suspension from the parliamentary party, and since then she has become a standard-bearer for the nascent left alternative: one of the youngest and most popular figures involved in its formation. Sultana has proposed co-leading the new party alongside Corbyn, and is part of a group working on the founding conference this autumn.
For the third instalment in this Sidecarseries, Oliver Eagleton spoke to Sultana about the new left party: why it is necessary, what kind of democratic structures it should have, its parliamentary and extra-parliamentary aims, its response to the far right, the case for co-leadership, and how the conference should be organised.
Oliver Eagleton: Let’s start with your political trajectory and relationship with the Labour Party. How has it evolved over time? What brought you to the decision to leave earlier this year? Do you think others on the so-called ‘Labour left’ will follow you?
Zarah Sultana: I was formed politically by the War on Terror and the aftermath of the financial crisis. The first time I engaged with parliamentary politics was when the coalition government launched a direct attack on my generation by tripling tuition fees; I was part of the first cohort who had to pay £9,000 per year for higher education. I decided to join Labour at the age of seventeen, because at that time it seemed like there was no other party that could act as a vehicle for change. I never thought it was perfect. My local branch in the West Midlands was controlled by older men who didn’t want young people – especially not young left-wing women – to be involved. When I went to study at Birmingham in 2012, the Labour clubs and societies did nothing other than host talks by right-wing MPs, so I had to find other political outlets.
In my first week of university my dad and I joined a delegation of Labour councillors and activists who went on a trip to the occupied West Bank, and it changed the way I saw myself. I had never previously thought of myself as privileged, but I realised that because of the sheer accident of where I was born and what passport I held, I was treated differently by the Israeli authorities. I watched as they harassed and abused Palestinians and then related to me as a regular human being. I went to Hebron and saw the Jewish-only roads, the communities who were coming under daily attack from settlers and soldiers. All this was hard to fathom. But it was even more confounding that we – our country, our society – were allowing this to happen. So that ignited an internationalism in me: a deep opposition to imperial power, apartheid, settler colonialism and military occupation.
Then when I got involved in the National Union of Students I realised that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. That’s a really magical moment, when you discover that you’re not alone in your politics. I started campaigning on issues like free education, maintenance grants, anti-racism, housing, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It was only after I graduated, though, that I learned just how broken our social contract was. I really struggled to find work. I would go to the Jobcentre, look through my CV and wonder why, despite my degree and my experience, I didn’t have a place in this economy. And of course I was also saddled with £50,000 worth of debt.
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