A NEW party of the left has caught up with Labour in the polls before it is even launched.

An explosive survey by pollsters Find Out Now found that 15 per cent of the electorate would back the new party projected to be co-led by independent MPs Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn.

This was the same as the number backing Labour. A further 5 per cent indicated support for the Greens, suggesting that a socialist-green alliance could overhaul Labour as the principal electoral force on the left.

Support for the new party was highest among the young, with 33 per cent of those aged 18-29 backing it, more than supported any other party. 

Moreover, 31 per cent of Labour voters said they would consider switching to the new party.

The polling question framed the new party as “led by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn,” the first to do so. 

However, moves to actually establish the party remain fraught. Discussions are continuing as to how or whether to carry forward the principle of “co-leadership” of the initiative. 

The decision of the organising committee charged with setting up the new party to seek co-leadership, taken by 17 votes to five abstentions, appears to have caught some of Mr Corbyn’s strongest personal supporters by surprise.

A number have now withdrawn from the committee, having unsuccessfully advocated for Mr Corbyn as sole interim leader supported by deputies.

Draft minutes of the meeting, seen by the Morning Star, indicate that they believed the body was not empowered to take such a decision, although one of those who has now withdrawn submitted his own paper proposing Mr Corbyn as leader to the committee, which had itself agreed the previous week to debate the issue. 

The draft minutes also record Mr Corbyn as saying he had “affection and admiration for Zarah” and was “happy to work with her in any capacity” but that he did not take any part in the final vote. 

He is believed to have indicated in a parallel WhatsApp chat that he did not want a vote to take place, believing only consensus to be appropriate.

Ms Sultana’s appeal for a new party has received an enormous public response. It is understood that around 120,000 people have signed up to back the initiative she launched after the committee meeting, simultaneous with announcing her resignation from the Labour Party.

Mr Corbyn was surprised by Ms Sultana’s announcement, which he had not signed off on and believed should not have been issued, insofar as it mentioned him too.

Since then, Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana have held a warm personal meeting but have been unable as yet to agree a formulation that carries forward the co-leadership decision. 

Both are committed to launching a new electoral challenge and have no known policy differences. Mr Corbyn favours an alliance of already-existing local independent initiatives under a common electoral umbrella, and is more reluctant than Ms Sultana to directly attack Labour.

The organising committee was scheduled to hold a further meeting last night. A meeting this week of the Collective, the body whose members have mostly withdrawn from the committee, heard calls for reconciliation and a consensus view for patience in waiting to see how the situation develops

The same poll underlined the stakes, since it put Reform on 34 per cent of the vote and the Tories on 17, making a hard-right government after the next election much the most likely outcome as things stand.