A former Leicester MP has joined a new politcal party set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Claudia Webbe was among around 75 people at the launch of the Leicester and Leicestershire branch of 'Your Party'.

The former Leicester East MP said the group was not there to "reform the status quo" but to "end it".

Ms Webbe was elected as a Labour MP in 2019, before being expelled from the party in 2021 and finishing her term as an independent. She lost her seat to the Conservatives' Shivani Raja at the 2024 General Election.

Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana announced in July that they were forming their own left-wing party, which has not yet formally been named. It is "rooted in" communities, trade unions and social movements, the two MPs said, and "belongs" to the people.

A spokesman for the Leicestershire branch said that local members "expressed the need to build a real militant voice for the entire working-class with a close connection to the trade union movement" when they met for the first time last month.

Other mainstream political parties, including Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, are "following the same economic policy and international global agenda, deepening inequalities and opening the door to Reform", he claimed. Faced with this, he said, he believed "no one could afford to not get involved and make their new party an earth-shaking success".

Your Party branch set up in Leicestershire by former MP (Photo: LDRS)

Ms Webbe said: "We are not here to reform the status quo. We are here to end it. Neither are we here to tinker at the edges, we are here to transform.

"We are building more than a party. We are building a vehicle for community power, a voice for the abandoned, the exploited, the oppressed.

"Your Party is born from refusal. Our new party will be rooted in class politics, not careerism. It will be accountable to its base, not to donors or lobbyists.

"It will be led by those who have stood in the trenches. Join us"

Socialist Alternative member and member of the new interim steering committee of Your Party in Leicestershire Tom Barker added: "Zarah Sultana recently said that 'the Labour Party is dead'. I agree.

"A new political party of the left is long overdue. We are going to offer a genuine socialist alternative to the establishment parties, based on the ideas of class struggle and militant trade unionism.

"For too long, right wing populists like Nigel Farage have been allowed to set the news agenda, with many of the establishment parties moving to the right in an attempt to cut across his support. We are here to challenge Farage's narratives head on.

"It is not immigrants or minorities that have thrown this country and the world into chaos. It is the rule of the tax avoiding and exploitative billionaire class.

"We are here to shake up this order. We are going to eclipse the parties that pander to the right by fighting hatred and division with solidarity and socialism."

A national founding conference for Your Party is expected to take place before the end of the year.