‘We Deserve Better campaign can take votes from Labour'

The new political initiative and crowdfunder – which The National and Guardian columnist Owen Jones backed after quitting Labour on Thursday – will support Green and Independent candidates in seats where Labour could be vulnerable.

Professor John Curtice, the president of the British Polling Council, said that where things will stand in Gaza by autumn is “highly unknown” and that it is difficult to say what electoral impact the group could have.

READ MORE: 'Red Tory' Keir Starmer challenged for Westminster seat by pro-Palestine group

He added, however, that he can “see them taking some votes off Labour” in seats with independent pro-Palestine candidates.

A number of candidates have already been installed to stand against Labour over the single issue of Gaza after controversial comments from Keir Starmer.

This includes Independent Leanne Mohamad against shadow health secretary Wes Streeting in Ilford North, whose campaign the group have already said they will back.

“Labour's progress may not be so strong in such constituencies,” Curtice said.

Pro-Palestine activist Andrew Feinstein, a former African National Congress MP in South Africa, will also run as a candidate in Keir Starmer’s central London seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Jones (above) – while announcing he was leaving the party he had once been a staunch supporter of – said Labour now “won’t even do the bare minimum to improve people’s lives”.

Jones explained how we "all have our red lines" and that his are "backing war crimes and mass slaughter", referring to Labour's stance on the Israel-Gaza crisis.

He promoted the campaign and suggested it could exert pressure on Labour from the left in the way Reform UK influences Tory opinion from the right.

Christopher J Carman, a professor at the University of Glasgow, said that the campaign could push Labour more to the left.

“It does raise the question of whether that could turn off some of the potential swing voters in the middle,” he added.

Although, he argued, it could also attract more left-wing voters to Labour as well.

In terms of the impact the group could have in Scotland, Carman said that was too difficult to say at this stage.

He said: “I would say it's a more complicated political space in Scotland which means it's harder to know what the effects of it would be.”

The group has announced it will also back Green co-leader Carla Denyer against shadow cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire in Bristol Central, and Jamie Driscoll, a former Labour politician, in the north-east mayoral contest in May.