Labour has ‘much to gain’ from a new Corbyn-led party, says ex-MP

A former Labour MP, Tom Harris, has today said that he believes the party has “much to gain” from Corbyn founding a new party.

His remarks follow reports over the weekend that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who remains a party member but is suspended from the parliamentary whip, is considering upgrading his charity the “Peace and Justice Project” into a political party.

Mr Corbyn was suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party after suggesting that his opponents had “dramatically overstated” the scale of antisemitism in the party under his leadership.

“Until a split happens, Sir Keir Starmer will continue to be in thrall to his own Left wing — a split would offer the party a fresh start,” Mr Harris argued in a comment piece for the Telegraph newspaper today.

“That any new Corbyn-led party might be launched before electoral reform is secured says a lot about how desperate the hard Left is. They have never been short of belief in their own philosophy and a conviction that the electorate would embrace them if only they weren’t so stupid and greedy,” he went on.