25-07-2025
Corbyn party should nationalise all banks, says board member
Jeremy Corbyn's new party will campaign to nationalise all banks, one of its organisers has said.
Pamela Fitzpatrick, a socialist campaigner and confidante of Mr Corbyn, said his party would campaign on a 'ruthless' and 'unapologetic' socialist platform, going further than Labour's 'pretty mild' 2019 manifesto.
Mr Corbyn launched the new party with Zarah Sultana, another Left-wing former Labour MP. Its name and policies will be decided at a conference later in the year, but it is currently entitled 'Your Party'.
The Telegraph can reveal some of its key figures are pushing for radical socialist policies, including forced nationalisation of the housing, construction and banking sectors and a ban on all second homes.
Ms Fitzpatrick told a podcast in May: 'What we should be doing is taking back those things into public ownership without compensation.
'We ought to be nationalising the construction industry. We ought to be thinking about nationalising the banks.
'We ought to say, we want a society where nobody's going hungry and everybody has a roof over their head, and when we get to that point, maybe then it's okay for somebody to own two properties, but until we have that it is not.'
Ms Fitzpatrick was expelled from the Labour Party in 2021 for giving an interview to an online channel associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party.
She is now one of the directors of the Peace and Justice Project (PJP), which Mr Corbyn set up after standing down as Labour leader to coordinate his campaigns.
She has spoken extensively about the prospect of a new party over the last year, and the PJP is managing data for the new Corbyn party, according to its website.
Ms Sultana, who is one of the two current MPs to give the new party its backing, said on Friday morning the party had already received signups from 230,000 people.
A spokesman said the figure was close to 300,000 by the end of the day – just short of Labour's 309,000 membership figures.
Some Left-wing Labour MPs, who had been expected to defect to Mr Corbyn, have said they would prefer to change Sir Keir Starmer's party from within.
In another interview, Ms Fitzpatrick said she did not believe Labour should have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism in 2018, which happened after complaints under Mr Corbyn's leadership.
'A key issue was the definition of anti-Semitism being adopted,' she said on an online panel in December. 'We should never have agreed to that and lots of us were kind of victims of that.'
Mr Corbyn has apologised for anti-Semitic abuse in the Labour Party under his leadership, but the disclosure will raise concerns that he will not adopt the definition again in his new venture.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn declined to comment on whether the definition would be adopted.
The spokesman said: '300,000 people have signed up to be part of a democratic founding process, leading to an all-member inaugural conference. This conference will determine the policies that are needed to transform society.'
It is understood that Mr Corbyn and allies are in the process of forming a steering committee for the new party, which will operate independently of the PJP.
It comes after polling showed that a party led by Mr Corbyn currently has the support of 10 per cent of the public.
Ms Sultana told organisers earlier this week that the party should be aiming for between 20 and 25 per cent of the vote at the local elections in May.
The elections, which cover some English councils and devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland, are already being pitched as a key test for Sir Keir by his critics on the Labour benches.
Some MPs have discussed deposing the party leader if he loses Labour-held councils or moves backwards in the devolved administrations.
Ms Fitzpatrick said: 'The new party will be democratic, member-led and accountable. Policies will be determined collectively – not dictated by individuals.
'My personal views, like those of any other member, will be one voice among many.'
