IF KEIR STARMER’S stumbling government needed a further wake-up call, the latest opinion poll should provide it.

It shows Labour’s support at a historic low of just 15 per cent.  That is no more than the share secured by the as-yet unlaunched new party of the left to be co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

Taken together with the Green vote, the left-of-Labour total would be 20 per cent. This would raise the prospect of the Labour Party being supplanted as the overwhelming electoral force on the left for the first time since its foundation 120 years ago.

Of course, it is only an opinion poll. And it is four years until Starmer next has to face a general election.

But the findings are consistent with other polls, showing Labour support dropping still further and potential backing for a new socialist electoral option swelling.

The new party has no formal existence or name. Its policies on many issues can be readily inferred but it has no agreed platform or manifesto. Nor is its strategy clear.

That there is nevertheless so much enthusiasm for so ill-defined a project speaks both to the yawning gaps left by Starmer’s stampede to the right and to the legacy of Corbyn’s own leadership of the party, which inspired so many.

The warnings from Unite of union disaffiliation if there is no change in government attitudes compounds the sense of crisis around Labour and of possibility around a new party.

One way to address Labour’s crisis is therefore obvious. Cease the degrading and futile pursuit of Reform and Tory voters by pandering to their presumed prejudices and remake the government around a consistently progressive agenda.

That would entail abandoning welfare cuts and other austerity measures and, at the same time, discarding the fiscal rules which are strangling the economy. If such a turn requires buttressing by capital controls, so be it.

There should be a sustained programme of state intervention to address inequality and corporate abuses — start with nationalising Thames Water without further prevarication.

It would also require a complete halt to all forms of support for Israel and real pressure to secure freedom for the Palestinians, as well as disengaging from Nato’s futile war in Ukraine, while restoring the eye-watering cuts to the overseas aid budget.

There is little sign of Starmer and Rachel Reeves making such a radical course adjustment, hence the backing for a new party.

However, a more consistent and uncompromising fight against the government by the Labour left could provide another pole of attraction for socialists. The huge rebellion over disability benefit cuts was a positive sign here.

It was immediately followed by a negative one, in that very many fewer Labour MPs rebelled against the sinister and absurd proscription of Palestine Action the next day. Austerity is bad, but so is the authoritarianism which so often accompanies it.

The Labour left needs greater clarity and consistency if it is to either impose changes on the cabinet’s course or wishes to plausibly offer the prospect of a different sort of Labour Party at some point down the line.

Absent that, the Corbyn-Sultana venture will only attract further support.  There is nothing to stop what happened to Pasok in Greece, the Socialist Party in France and the Labour Party in the Netherlands happening here.

That alone will not guarantee the new party success. It must speak to those large sections of working people attracted by right-wing populism, as well as to those already committed to the left. But society is demanding an alternative, and Sultana and Corbyn are stepping up to offer it.