Zarah Sultana

thumb|Zarah Sultana in 2024 Zarah Sultana (born 31 October 1993) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry South since 2019. Originally a member of the Labour Party, she was suspended from the parliamentary whip on 23 July 2024 and sits as an independent. She left the Labour Party and joined the Independent Alliance in 2025. Quotes 2023 I'll continue to use the platform [i.e. TikTok] because I think it's really effective in reaching out to newer audiences, younger audiences and getting out political messages. "TikTok good for reaching younger people, Coventry MP Zarah Sultana says", BBC News (19 March 2023). The only way we can actually change things is to have a Labour government that is bold and ambitious. … I think it's really important to take inspiration from previous governments, especially the Attlee government of '45. We saw a country that was completely destroyed by war and the answers of that Labour government weren't to tinker around the edges. "An interview with Zarah Sultana MP: strikes, power, and the cost-of-living crisis" (by Zac Attewell), The Boar (1 April 2023). We should be becoming a more decentralised country because that's where people feel like they can actually change things. Otherwise, things seem distant; things seem like they just happen in Westminster. If we could give combined authorities more power at local government, then that would be really positive. "An interview with Zarah Sultana MP: strikes, power, and the cost-of-living crisis" (by Zac Attewell), The Boar (1 April 2023). 2025 We're not here to beg for crumbs off the table, we're taking the fucking lot. Speech at Glastonbury Festival, June 2025 Billionaires already have three parties fighting for them. It's time the rest of us had one. Geraldine Scott, Seren Hughes, "MP Zarah Sultana quits Labour to form new party with Jeremy Corbyn", The Times (3 July 2025). I had never previously thought of myself as privileged, but I realised that because of the sheer accident of where I was born and what passport I held, I was treated differently by the Israeli authorities. I watched as they harassed and abused Palestinians and then related to me as a regular human being. "The Alternative" (an interview by Oliver Eagleton), New Left Review (17 August 2025). Between 2015 and 2019 I had friends and colleagues who worked at the top of the Labour Party, and they can tell you that in parts it was a highly dysfunctional working environment with toxicity and bullying – not from Jeremy [Corbyn], but from some people around him. Power was too centralised. This is not what we need for this emerging project. ... Everyone has to feel that they're involved and the organisation has to be representative of wider society. That also means we can't soft-pedal our anti-racism. Some people want us to focus solely on the 'economic issues'. But if the politics of class is detached from the politics of race then it is bound to fail – because when our neighbours are being simultaneously targeted for eviction and deportation, that struggle is one and the same. "The Alternative" (an interview by Oliver Eagleton), New Left Review (17 August 2025). What are our long-term goals? More time with our loved ones, more green space, universal childcare, free public transport, not worrying about bills. These are things that Farage and Starmer don't talk about. "The Alternative" (an interview by Oliver Eagleton), New Left Review (17 August 2025). What we need is a politics of fun and joy. We're not interested in meetings where everyone's got a point of order and they talk for twenty minutes each. Do you think the sixteen year-olds who are soon to get the vote will want to sit through that? The new project should engage that generation by embedding itself in mass culture. "The Alternative" (an interview by Oliver Eagleton), New Left Review (17 August 2025). The biggest threats we all face today aren't military invasions. It's the rise of the far right, it is global pandemics, it is climate catastrophe and economic crises. And NATO cannot solve any of these. "Zarah Sultana: if I can survive working Christmas in Primark, I can survive Westminster", The Canary (24 October 2025), at 32:46. My grandparents came to this country after Britain's rulers looted their homeland. We're here, as Sivanandan said, because you were there. "Your Party" founding conference, 29-30 November 2025 About Zarah Sultana In the last few days, Zarah Sultana ... has been exposed for making inflammatory statements that she would welcome the deaths of Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu and George W Bush, and in support of "violent resistance" by the Palestinians. These comments were made not in a distant past or as a juvenile, but just four years ago. Sultana hurriedly issued a feeble apology for "articulat[ing] my anger in the manner I did," as if her fault lay in the passion of her idealism Oliver Kamm "Chris Williamson is gone but the Labour Party remains a frightening place for Britain’s Jews", Prospect (7 November 2019). For an explanation of the article's main theme, see Chris Williamson. The people running Labour at the moment need to ask themselves why a young, articulate, talented, extremely dedicated socialist feels she now has no home in the Labour Party and has to leave. John McDonnell, quoted in Geraldine Scott, Seren Hughes, "MP Zarah Sultana quits Labour to form new party with Jeremy Corbyn", The Times (3 July 2025). External links Category:1993 births Category:Living people Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom Category:Labour Party (UK) politicians Category:Socialists from England Category:Anti-fascists Category:Democratic socialists Category:Women politicians in England Category:Women born in the 1990s