Jeremy Corbyn Ex-Labour MP to form independent alliance

Jeremy Corbyn is to form an official parliamentary alliance with four other independent MPs who were elected on pro-Gaza platforms-issuing a call for more MPs to join them.

- Jessica Elgot

The group will have the same number of MPs as Reform UK and the Democratic Unionist party, which each have five MPs, and more than the Green party and Plaid Cymru on four.

Promising to fight austerity and campaign on issues including the winter fuel allowance, the two-child benefit limit and arms sales to Israel, the group also explicitly invited MPs to join them, a reference to seven rebel Labour MPs suspended by the party for voting to end the two-child benefit cap.

Corbyn, a former Labour leader, was elected as an independent MP for Islington North after being barred from standing as a Labour candidate at the general election. The group will also include the MPs Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed.

The MPs said: "We were elected by our constituents to provide hope in a parliament of despair. Already, this government has scrapped the winter fuel allowance for around 10 million pensioners, voted to keep the twochild benefit cap, and ignored calls to end arms sales to Israel.