New parties rising on both left and right as British politics splinter

MANCHESTER, England (CN) — Britain’s political landscape is splintering as new parties are forming on both the left and right, exposing deep discontent with mainstream political options.

Zarah Sultana, a Labour lawmaker who was suspended from the party after voting against the government, has announced plans for a new left-wing party alongside Jeremy Corbyn, the former party leader.

While the structure of the party remains unclear, the move follows growing unrest among former Labour supporters since the party took power under Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Since taking power in July 2024, Labour has prioritized balancing the books by removing winter fuel allowance for pensioners, cutting welfare spending, maintaining a two-child benefit cap and proscribing the direct action group Palestine Action under terrorism laws — policies that have left supporters disillusioned.

“This current extreme right-wing Labour Party version offers nothing but more austerity to working class people,” said Kelvin, a voter from southeast England. “A genuine socialist Labour Party offers much more fairness, justice and greater equality.”

Andy, another disaffected former Labour member, said he “can’t wait” to join the new party, as Labour is now “run by the elite.”

Polling finds that a left-wing alternative led by Sultana and Corbyn could seriously dent Labour’s share of the vote, with 15% of people saying they would support the new party. This rises to 33% among voters under age 30, ahead of Reform on 24%.

The Labour government’s shift has opened space to its left, but it is also fueling support for Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage, and a crop of new rivals on the right.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, believes that traditional parties “make the classic mistake of thinking that they can counter Reform by offering voters some of what it’s offering, just in diluted form.”

What this leads to is “talking more about the issues that favor parties like Reform,” Bale added. It also forces the government to make “rushed and rash promises that you can’t possibly deliver on,” with “angry voters” preferring “the original to the copy.”

The right fractures

Ben Habib, the former deputy leader of Reform, launched Advance U.K. after what he described as “fundamental differences” with Farage over immigration. Habib backs mass deportations, a policy echoing the Trump administration’s use of ICE.

Other right‑leaning breakaway parties include Reclaim, led by actor Laurence Fox — who was ordered to pay substantial damages for defaming two individuals by calling them “pedophiles” — and Restore Britain, launched by Rupert Lowe, the former Reform deputy leader who was suspended from the party amid bullying accusations.

All pitch themselves as alternatives to what they claim is an out-of-touch elite in Westminster. Despite the crowded field, Reform is the only party with representation in Parliament, with four MPs.

The Green Party has the same number of lawmakers, but far less media attention. Farage has become a regular fixture on national TV, with the Reform leader even getting his own show.

The Greens, by contrast, are in the middle of a leadership reshuffle, with deputy leader Zack Polanski describing their strategy as a “left-wing populist” response to the Farage surge, an effort to broaden the party’s appeal beyond its traditional base.

A system under pressure

Louise Thompson, a senior politics lecturer at the University of Manchester, said the rise of these smaller parties is “a clear sign that other parties are being consistently seen as a more genuine alternative to the two traditional parties.”

But under the first-past-the-post voting system — where voters select a single candidate, as opposed to ranked choice voting — smaller parties struggle to turn support into seats. A record 53% of British voters now believe the voting system should be changed to give smaller parties a fairer share, according to NatCen research.

There’s growing pressure on the system to reflect political diversity, said Thompson. “This is something that Reform in particular is pushing very heavily … The Greens are also very heavily in favor of electoral reform,” which is “putting renewed pressure on our parliamentary rules which give the two main parties all the perks.”

Turnout in the last general election, which gave Labour a large but thin parliamentary majority, was the second-lowest in over a century. A separate study found 31% of Britons now feel they aren’t represented by any major party.

Peter Dorey, professor of British politics at Cardiff University, said the trend reflects long-term disillusionment.

“British voters have become less attached to a political party over the last 40 years,” he said. Austerity, underfunding of public services, and the lack of affordable housing have all fueled a sense among voters that “they’re all the same, as bad as each other, out of touch with ordinary people,” explained Dorey.

“This public disillusionment has been exacerbated or intensified by the austerity of the last 15 years,” Dorey said. “So it is a long-term trend which has been enhanced by some of the policies pursued by governments since 2010.”

Social class is no longer a reliable indicator of voting intention.

“Both classes are sensing that the system is not working for them, but their political responses are very different,” Dorey said. Working-class voters, once the base of Labour, are increasingly drawn to the right, while the middle class are moving to the left.

Many of the once pro-Conservative middle class, who are now “experiencing increasing job insecurity, redundancies, stagnant salaries, stronger top-down managerial control, and unaffordable housing,” have changed their vote to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

“Many older middle-class voters also see their adult children struggling with student debt and unaffordable housing,” he added, “and so, like the working class, are concluding that neoliberal capitalism is not working for them.”

Echoes across the Atlantic

The splintering of party politics isn’t unique to the U.K. In the U.S., tech billionaire Elon Musk has floated the creation of the America**** Party, aiming to appeal to the “80% in the middle,” with a platform that includes deficit reduction and fiscal conservatism.

Dorey sees strong similarities between the British working class, attracted by Farage and Reform, and the U.S. working class that have moved to Trump and the MAGA movement.

“A rejection of mainstream politicians, hostility towards the liberal elites and intellectuals, anger about uncontrolled immigration, and a perception that woke EDI [the British version of DEI] policies are privileging women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQ people over the white working-class,” he said.

In both countries, frustration with the system is high. In the U.K., a record 45% of voters say they “almost never” trust governments of any party to put the country before their own political interests. In the U.S., 37% of Americans say they wish there were more political parties to choose from.

With the current political system failing to meet the demands of a large group of citizens, disillusionment with the system is hollowing support for mainstream traditional parties.

Millions of voters are moving toward the fringes on both the left and right, putting pressure on the existing political system to change to better represent a fractured electorate.

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