JOURNALIST Owen Jones has said he has quit the Labour Party after 24 years as a member. 

In a post on Twitter/X, the London-based writer said people deserved better than “the race to the bottom between Labour and the Tories”.

The post was accompanied by a video in which he encouraged people to either vote for the Greens in England, or for an independent “unless you’ve still got a Labour MP who offers an actual alternative to the catastrophic Tory policies which have brought this country to the edge of ruin”.

“You can send Labour a message without risking them sneaking back in.”

In his latest column for The Guardian newspaper, Jones further explained his decision, writing that “it’s difficult to disentangle Labour from my sense of self,” saying his family has always had links to the party.

He said: "My decision isn’t based on a desire to see Labour for ever in the wilderness. Reaching it has been a gradual, painful process of realising the party won’t even do the bare minimum to improve people’s lives, or to tackle the crises that have led Britain to catastrophe; and that it will, in fact, wage war on anyone who wants to do either – making anyone with politics to the left of Peter Mandelson feel like a pariah on borrowed time.”

READ MORE: Watch the full interview as Owen Jones speaks with Humza Yousaf

He said Labour have “become a hostile environment for anyone believing in the very policies Starmer relied upon to secure the leadership”.

He also took aim at the party for its handling of the ongoing crisis in Gaza and discussed its handling of Diane Abbott.

"Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black female MP, was suspended after immediately apologising for an Observer letter in which she argued that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people are not subject to racism 'all their lives'.

"She has been left in limbo for 10 months and counting while the party investigates – only for Labour to use the racist abuse directed at her by a Tory donor for political capital, while still refusing to reinstate her."

Jones also encouraged people to support the new initiative We Deserve Better, which is raising money to support Green and independent candidates in England.

"Those seeking transformative policies are now fragmented, but they don’t have to be. The premise of this new initiative is simple: if the left doesn’t band together, the only pressure on Labour will come from the migrant-bashing, rich-worshipping right," he said.