Your Party, a new left-wing political party in the United Kingdom founded by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, is at odds with its leaders.
Due to a serious disagreement over who could attend, Your Party cofounder Zarah Sultana announced on Saturday that she would not attend the group’s inaugural two-day conference on Saturday.
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Following 14 years of Conservative Party rule, Corbyn and four other left-leaning independents, including Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan, and Iqbal Mohamed, founded the Independent Alliance, which emphasized strongly on adopting a pro-Palestine position in the wake of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Following yet another defeat for the Conservatives in the 2019 election, Corbyn, 76, resigned as leader of the Labour Party.
While leading Labour, Corbyn had long endured accusations of anti-Semitism, which many people called a “witch-hunt” against him and his supporters, among other things.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission discovered that Labour had violated the anti-Jewish racism law in 2020. It attributed a portion of Corbyn’s party leadership to “serious failings.”
Corbyn responded that anti-Semitism was “absolutely abhorrent,” but Corbyn added that “our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by a large amount of the media, significantly overstated the magnitude of the problem for political reasons.”
He was immediately expelled from the party as a result. After nearly 60 years of membership, he was readmitted in 2020, but he ultimately left the Labour Party in 2024 to become an independent MP.
He announced in late July that he would form a new socialist party with 32-year-old independent MP Zarah Sultana, who also resigned from Labour on July 3. The Independent Alliance’s other members also enlisted. The new party’s objective was to establish itself as a credible left-wing alternative to the ruling Labour Party.
When the government claims there are billions for war, Corbyn and Sultana claimed in a statement at the time that the system is rigged.
According to the statement, they “wanted a party that was rooted in our communities, trade unions, and social movements.”
During the inaugural conference, which took place in the northwestern English city of Liverpool and ended with a stirring rendition of Bella Ciao, an Italian antifascist folk song, by attendees, Corbyn said, “We’ve got to come together and be united because division and disunity will not serve the interests of the people that we want to represent.”
Why didn’t Sultana show up on time for the first day?
Sultana made a statement on Saturday that she would not attend in protest of one of her party’s supporters being denied entry to the event and several others being kicked out of the party for allegedly belonging to the far-left Socialist Workers Party.
People who have traveled from all over the country, spent a lot of money on their train tickets, hotels, and were able to attend this conference have been informed that they have been expelled, Sultana told the Press Association news agency.
She continued, “That culture is reminiscent of the Labour Party, how members were treated with contempt during witch-hunts on the eve of the conference, and how members were treated.”
However, a spokesperson for Your Party, who is unnamed, defended the Socialist Workers Party’s ban. The spokesperson told the UK media that “other national political party members signed up to Your Party in violation of clearly stated membership regulations,” and these rules were put in place.
Sultana apologized for what she described as “hiccups” during the party’s opening on Sunday during the second day of the conference.
However, she continued, “Conference floor bans, expulsions, and censorship are unacceptable.” It is anti-democratic. It attacks both this movement and its members.
What other issues did the leaders have disagreements with?
There have been numerous disagreements between the young party.
Funding
When Sultana first announced its intentions in July, Corbyn, Iqbal Mohamed, and Adnan Hussain accused the party of withholding more than 800,000 pounds ($1.06 million) in donations.
The party was being temporarily collected by a private company called MoU Operations Ltd, which Sultana controls, because it was still in the process of registering as a legal entity.
Unnamed Sultana spokesperson told The BBC on November 8 that she was “in the process of transferring all funds and data” but was also conducting “essential due diligence as part of this process.”
According to a statement from Your Party leaders, the party had received a “small portion” of the funds as of mid-November. The status of the remaining funds has not received any more recent updates.
model for leadership
The newly formed party’s leadership was in disagreement.
A single, traditional leader would be more effective, Corbyn claimed, while Sultana was pushing for a collective of leaders to reflect “maximum member democracy” (what she termed “maximum member democracy).
The party won the election by a narrow margin of 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent in the end for a group of leaders.
This results in a collective of leaders that will now be led by a non-parlamentarian party member.
In the end, many believe that Corbyn and Sultana’s conflict of interest is to blame for the party’s problems.
According to reports from the UK media, Sultana’s decision to hold a pre-conference rally the night before the conference started irritate Corbyn supporters. They claimed it was solely her, but she called it a Your Party event.
Desertions at parties
As Corbyn’s supporters accuse Sultana of trying to undermine him and vice versa, several members of the new party, including some working MPs, have already resigned. Adnan Hussain, a blackburn MP, announced his departure in an X-post on November 14.
Instead of a shared commitment to the common good, Hussain wrote in a statement, “The culture surrounding the party has become dominated by persistent infighting, factional competition, and a struggle for power, position, and influence.”
The environment has too frequently felt toxic, exclusionary, and deeply disheartening, he added, instead of cooperation, cooperation, and outward focus.
Iqbal Mohamed, a Dewsbury and Batley MP, also made his exit announcements a week later.
The numerous false allegations and smears against me and others, which have been reported as fact without any supporting evidence, have been surprising and disappointing, Mohamed said in a statement posted on X on November 21. I can assure my coworkers and I have done so in good faith throughout, but we haven’t changed our jobs.
