LONDON, Nov 29, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A new UK political party involving veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn opens its inaugural conference Saturday, seeking to move on from a messy launch and become a viable left-wing challenger to Labour.

As British politics fractures into a multi-party system and Prime Minister Keir Starmer takes Labour rightward on some issues, Corbyn's outfit hopes to fill a gap on the left.

But it faces a mammoth task, with polls showing that the Green Party -- newly headed by a charismatic leader 30 years younger than Corbyn -- is mopping up most disaffected lefties.

"The people of this country desperately need a real alternative to the rise of the far right," said lawmaker Shockat Adam, referring to anti-immigrant Reform UK's lead in opinion polls.

Adam, elected at last year's general election on a pro-Palestinian ticket, was one of four independent MPs to sign up for "Your Party", which Corbyn and fellow ex-Labour lawmaker Zarah Sultana announced they were forming in July.

Two have since quit, however, amid open warfare between Corbyn, 76, and Sultana, 32, that has included a dispute over a botched membership launch and threats of legal action.

Iqbal Mohamed said last week he had decided to leave Your Party, citing "false allegations and smears against me and others".

That came after Adnan Hussain announced he was exiting the outfit due to "persistent infighting" and "veiled prejudice" against Muslim men.

"It's pretty obvious that it has been a disaster so far," Colm Murphy, an expert on the British left at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.

Corbyn and Sultana will try to put their differences aside when several thousand supporters of the new movement gather in Liverpool, northwest England, for two days.

Members are due to choose the party's official name and decide whether it should have a single leader or be led by its members.

- 'Natural home' -

Corbyn lost two elections as Labour leader between 2015 and 2020 before being suspended for refusing to fully accept a rights watchdog's findings that antisemitism was rife among activists during his leadership.

He was succeeded by Starmer, who dragged the party back to the centre and returned it to power in July 2024 after 14 years in opposition.

But Labour has since plummeted in popularity among left-wing voters in particular, due to its crackdown on immigration, perceived failure to redistribute enough wealth and alleged slowness to call out Israel for its conduct of the war in Gaza.

Stuart Hill, a former Labour councillor who quit the party in 2023 after 30 years of membership, said he joined Your Party "with enthusiasm".

"Labour is completely ineffectual," he told AFP, accusing it of adopting similar rhetoric to Reform on migrants in order to appeal to their supporters.

Some 50,000 people have become members of Your Party, Corbyn announced earlier this month, calling the outfit a "mass democratic movement for real change".

But a YouGov poll published this week suggested that only 12 percent of Britons would consider voting for it, compared to 28 percent for the Greens, led by Zack Polanski, 43.

Your Party is "at risk of being irrelevant very quickly", said Murphy, noting that Polanski had "taken over" Corbyn's role as the "populist, radical left voice" in Britain.

UK politics has long been dominated by Labour and the Conservatives, but the centre-left Liberal Democrats won 72 seats in the 650-seat parliament last year, while Reform, led by Nigel Farage, won five and the Greens took four.

Labour, under pressure from its own backbenchers, adopted a number of left-wing measures in its budget this week, including raising the minimum wage, boosting child benefits and introducing a new tax on high-value homes.

"We should be doing much more to hold on to our traditional support," Labour MP Steve Witherden told AFP beforehand, adding that his party can still "remain the natural home of the left".