PEACE and a degree of unity has now prevailed in the leadership of the new left party headed up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

Ms Sultana gave her backing to the membership drive initiated by Mr Corbyn, drawing a line under the extraordinary split occasioned by her own membership launch last week.

Your Party, the working name for the initiative, has deleted statements relating to that incident from its social media.

Ms Sultana herself told a rally in Sheffield that “the last few days have been truly regrettable and I am sorry for the part I played in that.

“Me and Jeremy are both fully committed to making this left-wing party succeed. Fascism is growling at the door. The stakes are too high for us to fail,” she said to warm applause.

Ms Sultana conceded that people had been left feeling demoralised and that she herself had been “demoralised, upset and angry” but was now determined to move forward.

Her remarks echo Mr Corbyn’s own acknowledgement that “we haven’t covered ourselves in glory” over the past week.

Both leaders are now committed to the party’s founding conference taking place in Liverpool at the end of November, where it will be put on a firm political and democratic basis.

Wildly popular when first announced, the party now has a lot of ground to make up to repair the damage in public perception cause by the split, and rebuild bridges burnt.

One issue will be restoring relations within the Independent Alliance group of MPs, the parliamentary foundation of Your Party, after since-deleted allegations by Ms Sultana against its other members.