Senior Momentum figure joins leftwing initiative to unseat Labour

A senior figure in grassroots organisation Momentum has quit Labour to join a new cross-party campaign aimed at tilting the party leftwards at the general election. Worthing councillor Hilary Schan has resigned from the Labour Party and stood down as Momentum's co-chairwoman to join We Deserve Better.

The new initiative will support Green and independent candidates in seats where Labour could be vulnerable. Campaign group Momentum was established after Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015 to advocate for left-leaning policies.

Socialist Guardian columnist Owen Jones gave up his Labour membership to support We Deserve Better, in a high-profile announcement as it was launched.

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Ms Schan resigned her Labour position alongside two other Worthing councillors, and said she can "no longer in good conscience stay in a party which, under (Sir Keir) Starmer's leadership, is being taken further and further away from its founding values and is now simply a Tory-lite party at best".

She added: "Starmer has junked every one of his policy pledges to fix this broken Britain and I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them to vote for a Labour government which will only let them down.

"As I have wrestled with these issues, Labour's disgusting response to the horrors in Gaza has provided clarity. I cannot remain a member of a party whose leader endorsed a war crime by Israel and even now won't call for a suspension of UK arms sales to Israel and condemn its government's atrocities."

Ms Schan said Labour losses to the Greens in Bristol, and independent candidates in other areas in the local elections show there was an appetite for an "alternative to the race to the bottom between Labour and the Tories".

Labour's losses in the local polls were however eclipsed by its gains, as the party dominated in the mayoral elections, and won 1,158 council seats, gaining eight councils across England.

"I'm excited to be working with We Deserve Better to build that alternative and I urge all hose who feel politically abandoned by Labour to join us," Ms Schan added.

Mr Jones welcomed her to the initiative, and said the Labour party was "driving away committed elected representatives and campaigners like Hilary just as he's driving away core Labour voters".

Sir Keir struck a conciliatory tone after reports of voters turning away from Labour over its position on Gaza.

Speaking in Birmingham after the result of the West Midlands mayoral race, the Labour leader said: "I say directly to those who may have voted Labour in the past, but felt on this occasion they couldn't, that across the West Midlands we are a proud and diverse community.

"I have heard you. I have listened. And I am determined to meet your concerns and to gain your respect and trust again in the future."