Nightmare for Keir Starmer as Jeremy Corbyn forms new alliance with four MPs
Five MPs who sit in the Commons as independents will be in the new group.
Jeremy Corbyn will create an official parliamentary alliance with four independent MPs who were elected on pro-Gaza campaigns.
The group will have the same number of MPs as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the Democratic Unionist party, who each have five MPs. This is more than the Green party and Plaid Cymru on four.
It 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 two-child benefits cap, and ignored calls to end arms sales to Israel.
“Millions of people are crying out for a real alternative to austerity, inequality and war – and their voices deserve to be heard. As individuals we were voted by our constituents to represent their concerns in parliament on these matters, and more, and we believe that as a collective group we can carry on doing this with greater effect.
“The more MPs who are prepared to stand up for these principles, the better. Our door is always open to other MPs who believe in a more equal and peaceful world.”
The five MPs had already begun working as a parliamentary group before the summer recess, including signing a number of joint letters to the government and issuing joint statements.
The Independent Alliance will not be a political party but the grouping said it had formed so that the five MPs were allocated more parliamentary time to ask questions and speak in debates – operating in effect as a political party without a leader.
But there is not yet a formal agreement in place to enable this to happen.
A spokesperson for the Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle said a letter had been received but declined to say whether that would have any impact on parliamentary time allocated.
The Independent Alliance has vowed to fight austerity and issues such as the winter fuel allowance, the two-child benefit limit and arms sales to Israel.
The group also invited MPs to join them, a reference to seven rebel Labour MPs currently suspended by the party for voting to axe the two-child benefit cap.
Corbyn, a former Labour leader, was elected as an independent MP for Islington North in July after being barred from standing as a Labour candidate at the last election.
