'Your Party' to be established at November conference despite political infighting, sources say
'Your Party' to be established at November conference despite political infighting, sources say
The left-wing "Your Party" will be established at a conference in November despite this week's public spat between Zarah Sultana and the other five MPs in the Independent Alliance.
While it has been widely speculated that the rift spells the end for the party, sources with knowledge of the matter told Middle East Eye that Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed are determined to help heal the divide with Sultana, although they believe the party must be established at a conference in November regardless.
Sultana, meanwhile, has backed calls for the six MPs to hand the founding of the party over to members through the appointment of a new "handover committee".
Corbyn has not explicitly addressed these calls, but he appeared to dismiss them at a Peace and Justice Project event on Saturday, insisting that "despite what some people have discussed endlessly on social media", he and the other MPs "are together organising not to run [the party], not to control it, but to direct it, merely to facilitate it".
He said he was "absolutely determined this party will be founded".
"This party will have its founding conference in November. This party will be open, democratic and grassroots-based."
The party, which has yet to be formally named, faced fresh turmoil on Thursday when supporters received an email inviting them to sign up for membership of the new party at the cost of £5 ($6.74) a month or £55 a year.
Sultana had posted on social media encouraging people to join and claimed more than 20,000 people had done so, suggesting over £1m had been raised.
But within hours of the announcement, at 2pm, Corbyn posted a statement signed by the four other independent MPs in which he said the emails were "unauthorised" and that any direct debits set up should be "immediately cancelled".
They further said that "legal advice is being taken".
Sultana responded with her own statement half an hour later, saying: "After being sidelined by the MPs named in today’s statement and effectively frozen out of the official accounts, I took the step of launching a membership portal so that supporters could continue to engage and organise."
She told supporters to "sign up now" and said the portal was "safe, secure, legitimate".
Sultana further accused the other MPs of being "sexist," saying: "Unfortunately, I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club. I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely."
Later on Thursday, the other five MPs announced they had reported the party to the UK’s data protection watchdog. They said a “false membership system has been unilaterally launched” and that Sultana “has not been excluded from any discussions”.
MEE understands that these extraordinary proceedings were the culmination of a steady deterioration over the past month in relations between Sultana and the other MPs.
When did the tensions start?
Within weeks of Corbyn and the four other independent MPs winning their respective seats at the 2024 general election, discussions were taking place on the prospect of a new left-wing party that would rival Labour.
But in a shock announcement this July, Sultana announced she was leaving Labour and would be starting a new party with Corbyn, a move that caught the former Labour leader and others involved in the project by surprise.
Over the next days and weeks, the MPs coalesced around the new party and decided that a founding conference would be held later in the year.
Momentum was building as hundreds of thousands of people signed up. Some nationwide opinion polls gave the party, still not technically in existence, 10 percent of the vote share.
Coming as it did alongside the rise of the right-wing populist party Reform UK and the near-decimation of the Conservatives, the new party looked like it could prove disastrous to Labour and accelerate the destruction of the old two-party system.
But tensions reared their head once again in mid-August when Sultana gave an interview with the New Left Review in which she extensively criticised Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020.
She accused Corbynism of having "capitulated to the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism, which famously equates it with anti-Zionism".
Sultana further levelled serious criticism against the party under his leadership. While she was involved with the party during that time, she did not become an MP until the December 2019 general election.
The criticism came thick and fast in the interview. Sultana added that Corbynism "didn't make a real effort to channel its mass membership into the labour movement or tenants unions, which would have enriched the party’s social base".
She continued: "When it came under attack from the state and the media, it should have fought back, recognising that these are our class enemies. But instead it was frightened and far too conciliatory."
Corbyn, one of the most recognisable figures in Britain, has almost certainly been the biggest factor drawing people to the party.
But Sultana was evidently asserting herself and her own position.
Days later, a clearly displeased Corbyn told MEE that he did not "think it wasn't really necessary for her to bring all that up in the interview, but that's what she decided to do".
Troubles continued in early September when Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain, who boasts a sizeable social media following, said on X that "women's rights and safe spaces should not be encroached upon" and that "safe third spaces should be an alternative option".
He added that trans women are "not biologically women, hence trans women", echoing the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year.
These comments won him support from many but also drew intense criticism from large numbers of leftists, who claimed his views were bigoted.
Sultana responded by suggesting Hussain had no place in the party, saying: "There is no room for socially conservative views in a left-wing socialist party. Period."
Asked by comedian Nish Kumar about Hussain's comments, she said: "If people don't have pro-trans, pro-immigrant, anti-racist values, there are plenty of other political spaces that you can enter."
The debate was turning into what seemed like a fundamental disagreement over how broad the party's umbrella should be.
'Solidarity before individualism'
Laura Pidock, a former Labour MP who was in Corbyn's shadow cabinet, said on X: "The Idea that there won’t be social conservatism in a movement which is aiming to be a mass movement is a fallacy.
"The point is to build political cultures which are robust enough to challenge each other & raise collective consciousness through political education. Otherwise you end up building political cliques."
Hussain argued that "traditional socialism has never shunned the socially conservative. It's liberal absolutism that won't allow the space for differing views - driving away the very communities the Left both needs to survive and claims to represent".
He also pointed to British left-wing history, saying: "Several UK communities fused social conservatism with political socialism: Welsh Nonconformists, Scottish crofters, & East End Jews grounded leftist activism in faith, tradition, and their understanding of moral order.
"A politics of solidarity before individualism."
As the debate continued, Corbyn remained noticeably silent. The incredible intensity of the conflict came from Sultana’s apparent assertion that Hussain did not belong in the party.
Given that Sultana accused her fellow MPs of being a "sexist boy's club", that they have reported the party to the data protection watchdog and that Sultana has said she has “instructed specialist defamation lawyers" to protect her against “baseless attacks”, it is exceedingly difficult to see how the rift can be healed.
None of the numerous sources within the party that MEE spoke to believed a reconciliation was likely.
There is a general consensus that the other MPs, besides Sultana, will try to plough ahead with the party whether the split is resolved or not.
Some sources suggested that the only way to resolve the conflict is to have party members decide on the leadership and structure going forward. This would likely be done at November's conference.
A new group emerged on Friday afternoon called "Our Party", demanding "the creation of a new and democratic founding committee for Your Party, which will steward the delivery of the founding conference".
This group would operate independently of the MPs in the Independent Alliance, stripping them of their importance in the party’s establishment.
At the time of writing, a petition the group launched has received around 4,000 signatures. On Friday evening, Sultana backed it, saying: "Your Party belongs to you, not MPs. I support this call from the movement."
The other MPs in the Alliance have not commented, although Corbyn has signalled disagreement with the idea.
While the conflict persists, it is likely that many erstwhile supporters of the party will flock to the Green Party, now under the left-wing leadership of Zack Polanski.
"Delighted to announce we just reached 73,000 new members," he posted on X on Thursday as the drama unfolded.
For now, at least, the Greens will be the greatest beneficiaries of the rift.
