Corbyn's party could inflict serious damage on Labour

It may have been a rather turbulent launch, but the potential for Jeremy Corbyn's new party to shake up the UK's fractured political landscape has certainly not gone unnoticed in Westminster.

- KATE DEVLIN

The MP for Islington North has promised to “build a democratic movement that can take on the rich and powerful” in the form of a “new kind of political party”. But while the as-yet-unnamed party looks to the future - and the next general election - it may well contain more familiar faces than you might expect.

The former Labour leader's new party hopes to tempt a number of his former comrades-in-arms to join as it attempts to seize on Labour's struggles in the polls and position itself in part as the party on the left of British politics that can take on Nigel Farage's Reform, according to insiders.

The pitch to current Labour MPs will, among other things, suggest that they can stick with Sir Keir Starmer and a stumbling Labour party - and lose their seat - or join Corbyn's new group and save it.

While insiders would not be drawn on specific targets, a number of sitting MPs and constituencies are thought to have already been identified. Among those rumoured to be under consideration are MPs in the Socialist Campaign Group, which includes former shadow minister Ian Lavery and Ian Byrne, and those disillusioned by the recent row over Labour's welfare cuts.

More than 120 Labour MPs, including MPs like Kim Johnson from Liverpool, a pocket of the country where the new Corbyn party has in recent days been thought to have attracted strong support, backed a bid to block the government's planned welfare changes, before ministers eventually backed down.