Zarah Sultana accuses Observer cartoon of ‘brownfacing'
The independent MP, who resigned from Labour earlier this month, attacked cartoonist Saffron Swire over her depiction of Ms Sultana on the front of a raisin box.
She accused the artist, who is the daughter of Sir Hugo Swire, the former Tory MP, of nepotism and being a 'Right-wing hack'.
For The Observer's cartoon of the week, Ms Swire produced a mock invite to Jeremy Corbyn's party, complete with the former Labour leader dressed in a bright red Soviet 70s jumpsuit.
'Let's paint the town red!' a speech bubble reads, while the RSVP address lists the House of Commons.
Ms Sultana, who had the Labour whip suspended in July 2024 after voting to scrap the two child benefit cap, resigned from Labour this month to form a breakaway hard-Left political party.
She announced that Mr Corbyn would co-lead the new party, which still has no name, though reports suggested the move had caught the Islington North MP off guard.
Ms Swire's cartoon invitation also promises goodie bags 'for the many (not the few)', emblazoned with a hammer and sickle.
The bags are shown to contain a box of 'Zarah Sultanas', modelled in the style of a Sun-Maid red raisin box, and a copy of Karl Marx's Das Kapital.
Responding to the cartoon published on X, the MP for Coventry South wrote: 'Brownfacing a box of raisins and mocking my surname.
Brownfacing a box of raisins and mocking my surname.
Exactly what you'd expect from a right-wing hack who is the daughter of an aristocrat and ex-Tory MP. https://t.co/Zvyt4NlS7M pic.twitter.com/Krhvk8sLCy
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) July 20, 2025
'Exactly what you'd expect from a Right-wing hack who is the daughter of an aristocrat and ex-Tory MP.'
Sir Hugo, the former Minister for Northern Ireland Office under David Cameron, was appointed as a life peer in 2022, becoming Baron Swire of Down St Mary in County Devon. The former MP served as representative for East Devon from 2001 to 2019.
His daughter, Saffron, has written or produced cartoons for Prospect, Tortoise, The Economist, Art UK and the New European, as well as The Spectator.
Sun-Maid, founded in California in 1912, has become the world's most recognisable raisin brand. The woman wearing a red bonnet holding a pallet of grapes was based on a painting of model Lorraine Collett by artist Fanny Scafford.
Ms Sultana was born in Birmingham to a family which had migrated from Kashmir.
She set up her hitherto unnamed Left-wing party on July 3, vowing to lead a cohort of independent MPs and activists against Sir Keir Starmer's benefit cuts and against what she described as 'genocide' in Gaza.
Leading Corbynites rule themselves out
Leading Corbynites John McDonnell and Diane Abbott were swift to rule themselves out, while the former Labour leader took his time to offer lukewarm praise for Ms Sultana's bravery in breaking away but neglected to directly confirm his co-leadership.
Last week, Ms Abbott was suspended again from the Labour party after she doubled down on her claim that Jews experience racism differently to black people.
The hard-Left MP had been suspended in March 2023 for claiming that 'white people with points of difference' such as Jewish people, Travellers or Irish people are not 'all their lives subject to racism'.
Last week, Ms Abbott said, in an interview with the BBC, that it was 'silly' to liken racism based on skin colour to racism faced by Jewish and Traveller communities.
Responding to Ms Abbott's suspension, Ms Sultana said: 'I stand with Diane Abbott'.
The Guardian, which sold The Observer to Tortoise in December 2024, was previously accused of racism for its cartoonist Martin Rowson's depiction of outgoing BBC boss Richard Sharp.
The Left-wing newspaper was forced to apologise and remove the cartoonist's impression after it was widely condemned as antisemitic.
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