A NEW political initiative has been launched in a bid to challenge Keir Starmer and the Labour Party ahead of the next General Election.

We Deserve Better plans to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people to campaign for Green and independent candidates in England to challenge Labour in key constituencies.

It has been endorsed by journalist Owen Jones – who announced he had quit as a member of the Labour Party after more than 20 years on Thursday morning.

He encouraged supporters to get behind the new initiative as he called on people to either vote for the Greens in England, or independent candidates. 

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The new campaign will target the seats of senior Labour MPs and will back green and independent candidates, such as Leanne Mohammed – who is standing in shadow health secretary Wes Streeting’s (below) seat of Ilford North.

The National: Wes Streeting

Commenting on the launch of the new initiative, Jones said: “Until now, opposition to Labour has been fragmented.

“We Deserve Better marks the beginning of that opposition coming together to form a serious challenge to Labour in key seats, pressuring Labour from its left flank, mirroring Reform UK and the Conservatives.

“Labour will win the next General Election by default thanks to the Tories’ self-immolation. So those of us who cannot in good conscience support a party which plans to maintain ruinous austerity measures which, for example, keep 250,000 children in poverty, or back a Labour leader who defends Israel’s war crimes, can be safe in the knowledge that there’s no risk of the Tories getting back into government if we campaign for non-Labour candidates.

“Starmer has alienated Labour’s base and taken seats for granted based on an arrogant assumption that those voters have nowhere else to go. But at the next election, they will be able to back an alternative based on the politics of hope.”

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It says it will seek to mobilise “the over 200,000 people who have left the Labour Party since Starmer became leader to use the time and energy that they once put into canvassing for Labour, into organising for these candidates challenging Labour”.

The new campaign has immediately launched a donation drive, warning that an election could potentially be called at any moment.