Category World News

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.

What Party Do You Support?

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.

After much thought, I made the difficult choice to leave Your Party’s steering committee.

I wish those who continue to work on this project the best of luck and hope that their hard work leads to the desired outcomes. pic. twitter.com/zz4EevEIzu

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.

My resignation from Your Party. pic. twitter.com/NsoNLHU7xI

In response to criticism of the government’s response to Hong Kong’s most stringent fire in a generation, Chinese authorities have taken several activists into custody and issued a stern warning to “anti-China and pro-chaos elements”

In response to the city’s worst fire in nearly eight decades, calls for accountability grew for the national security police of Hong Kong over the weekend, according to state-backed and commercial media reports.

A day after the arrest of a university student on suspicion of sedition, authorities on Sunday detained former district councillor Kenneth Cheung Kam-hung and an unidentified volunteer who managed supplies for survivors. According to The Standard newspaper, Chong was detained on suspicion of “inciting discord.”

According to multiple reports, authorities detained 24-year-old Miles Kwan, a student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, after he launched an online petition for greater accountability and transparency from the government.

The petition made demands that an independent commission of inquiry be established to examine the fire’s circumstances, including whether potential conflicts of interest might have contributed to the disaster.

The petition had more than 10,000 supporters before it was taken down from the internet on Saturday.

Before being removed, activists accused China’s national security office of using “the banner of petitioning the people to incite confrontation and tear society apart” in Hong Kong.

The city’s Office for Safeguarding National Security has also accused individuals with “sinister intentions” of utilizing the fire to bring the city back to the “black-clad violence” that erupted during large-scale antigovernment protests in 2019.

A Wen Wei Po commentary from the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper on Monday urged the public to be wary of “anti-government elements” and “malicious intentions.”

They even went so far as to “act as representatives” to form a ‘conventional’ group, submit ‘four demands,’ distribute leaflets, and launch a petition, according to the commentary.

Their actions are completely devoid of humanity and conscience.

‘Outrageous’

Following Beijing’s extensive overhaul of the semi-autonomous territory’s political and legal landscape in response to the 2019 demonstrations, the crackdown is the latest indication of the shrinking space for dissent in Hong Kong.

China has repeatedly refuted claims that Hong Kong’s civil liberties have declined, arguing that residents’ rights and freedoms have been “even better protected” by the passage of two ambitious national security laws.

Beijing has also argued that the law allows for the continuation of Hong Kong’s partial autonomy under the 1997 UK-imposed “One Country, Two Systems” agreement.

The authorities’ actions, according to Nathan Law, an activist and critic of Beijing who served in the legislature of Hong Kong, are “outrageous” and the latest illustration of a “highly authoritarian trend” in the former British colony.

By arresting these individuals, the government hopes to have a chilling effect. Law, who lives in self-exile in the UK and is wanted by Hong Kong authorities on national security charges, told Al Jazeera. “Any civil actions that go against the government’s orders are now prohibited.”

Whether or not it is political, “the government worries about people gathering and starting a collective action.”

Requests for comment were not responded to by the Hong Kong Police Force.

Ronny Tong, a non-official member of Hong Kong’s de facto cabinet, refuted the claim that the authorities were stifling criticism of the government’s handling of the disaster.

By no means is there a general suppression of different opinions or criticisms of the government, Tong told Al Jazeera, “If you look at the major newspapers in Hong Kong, there are very many various suggestions and… criticisms of the handling of the incident in Hong Kong.”

Tong argued that the law allowed for “constructive” criticism of the authorities, even though it would be inappropriate to comment on cases involving people who have not yet gone through the court system.

To arrive at the conclusion that the Hong Kong government are trying to stifle views that they don’t like, he said, one must not simply make the case of a few arrests. The circumstances are still undetermined.

The worst fire in Hong Kong’s northern district of Tai Po since at least 1948 resulted in at least 151 fatalities in the Wednesday fire at a high-rise apartment complex.

Authorities are investigating how the rapid spread of the fire may have been helped by the magnitude of the disaster, with authorities looking into how the use of substandard materials during the block’s renovation projects might have contributed.

The directors of an engineering consulting firm involved in the renovations are among the 13 people who have been detained by Hong Kong authorities as part of their investigation into the fire.

Commission of inquiry

The government has not yet indicated that it will establish an independent commission of inquiry, despite the independent commission against corruption launched by the Hong Kong police and the city’s Independent Commission Against Corruption.

In response to numerous previous tragedies, Hong Kong authorities established commissions of inquiry, a remnant of British rule in the area.

Tragedies were investigated in previous inquiries, which were typically led by judges, such as a 2012 ferry accident that left 39 people dead and a 1996 fire that claimed 41 lives.

Beijing, according to former Hong Kong attorney Kevin Yam, could not tolerate public criticism of the government’s response to the fire because it was worried that “the smallest spark of dissent can turn into something bigger.”

The phrase “They who control the past control the present control the future, and they who control the present control the future” is well known to those who read Orwell. Yam, who is wanted by the Hong Kong authorities for alleged national security offenses, told Al Jazeera that the Communist Party of China has always been very good at that.

They observe that the official record of history is silenced and the criticism is silenced before favorable stories about how things are handled are released into the world.

Since the protests in 2019, Hong Kong has dramatically reduced the space for dissent. It was once known for its noisy media, vibrant civil society, and political diversity.

Authorities have effectively removed opposition parties from the city’s legislature, banned politically sensitive protests, and forced the closure of critical media outlets in accordance with the laws, which have been widely condemned by international governments and rights organizations.

In response to the anti-government demonstrations that started peacefully before morphing into street fights between protesters and police, and other threats to national security facing the territory, the governments of China and Hong Kong have defended the laws as a fair measure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested on Sunday that President Isaac Herzog pardon him and bring charges of bribery and fraud to put an end to his five-year corruption trial.

In addition to bringing charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, Netanyahu is facing three separate corruption cases that have been filed in 2019: Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000.

What we know is as follows:

What is the argument made by Netanyahu?

Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and claims that the media and rivals’ “witch-hunt” led to a “deep state” conspiracy.

He has also asserted that in a turbulent time for the Middle East, if he is pardoned, Israel will be strengthened.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s submission comes a few weeks after Donald Trump pressed Herzog to pardon Netanyahu.

Trump’s earlier request is referenced in Netanyahu’s 111-page pardon request, which Herzog’s office submitted.

According to analysts and observers, Netanyahu has continued to expand and expand Israel’s genocidal assault on the besieged Gaza Strip in his efforts to prevent trial and prevent possible conviction.

Would Netanyahu be required to confess his guilt in order to receive a pardon?

Netanyahu refuses to acknowledge guilt or wrongdoing in his pardon request.

Netanyahu cannot be pardoned, according to opposition leader Yair Lapid, “without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse, and an immediate retirement from political life.”

According to Dana Blander, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, an admission of guilt is legal, but that is not required, according to an article. Generally speaking, a pardon is not subject to any restrictions.

The Ministry of Justice’s pardons department will first review the request for pardon, which will then give Herzog’s office an opinion.

The president is not required to do so, as the ministry typically suggests.

Herzog has previously stated that the most efficient way to conclude this legal case would be a negotiated settlement between the prosecution and Netanyahu’s legal team.

What has the leadership and populace of Israel done?

Israelis staged a protest against Netanyahu’s pardon petition outside Herzog’s Tel Aviv residence on Sunday night, along with Naama Lazimi and other opposition figures.

Although Herzog and Netanyahu once had a friendly working relationship, they no longer face political strife.

In response to the pardon request, Herzog’s office said in a statement that “the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request” after receiving all of the pertinent opinions.

Yohanan Plesner, president of The Israel Democracy Institute, told The Associated Press that “he basically says, “I’m completely innocent.”

There is no sense of responsibility here, which could send a troubling message to all politicians and how our public perceptions might be.

What crimes is Netanyahu accused of?

Describe the following:

Case 1000, the ‘ Gifts Affair ‘

Netanyahu was charged with fraud and breach of trust while serving as communications minister from 2014 to 2017 in the year that he was prime minister.

According to the allegations, Netanyahu and his wife Sara were given lavish presents from two wealthy businessmen in exchange for political favors, including champagne and cigars, worth nearly $200,000.

Arnon Milchan, an Israeli billionaire, and James Packer, an Australian billionaire, are the businessmen.

Milchan claimed to have given gifts to Netanyahu in June 2020. Packer was also accused of paying Milchan for these pricey presents.

Netanyahu is accused of lobbying US officials to get Milchan’s interests through lobbying them to get his US visa renewed. He is also accused of supporting, like Milchan, a tax exemption law that might have been advantageous for Israelis living abroad.

According to Packer, media reports claimed that he was investing heavily in Israel and that his attorneys had inquired about the billionaire’s tax benefits from living there.

Bribery can result in sentences of up to 10 years and/or a fine, while fraud and breach of trust can result in prison sentences of up to three years.

Following the indictment, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit stated that the goods were valued at approximately 700,000 shekels ($186, 000).

The “Netanyah-Mozes affair” case from 2000

According to the allegations in this case, Netanyahu also faces charges of fraud and breach of trust, claiming that he also made a deal with businessman Aron Mozes, the publisher of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, in which he had a negative reputation.

The alleged agreement included favorable coverage of Netanyahu in exchange for legislation to stop the rival Israel Hayom newspaper’s decline, which had overtaken Yedioth Ahronoth. Israel Hayom’s circulation was being restricted by a legislative bill being considered.

According to the indictment summary, the two men held three meetings between 2008 and 2014 despite having “profound rivalries” between them.

According to the indictment, Netanyahu and Mozes “engaged in discussions regarding the promotion of their common interests, including improving the coverage that Mr. Netanyahu received from the Yedioth Ahronoth media group and imposing restrictions on the ‘Israel Hayom’ newspaper.”

Case 4000, the ‘ Bezeq affair ‘

In this case, Netanyahu is accused of indicting Netanyahu for granting Bezeq, an Israeli telecom company, favors in exchange for favorable coverage of Walla, a former chairman’s news website.

allegedly provided regulatory benefits to Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Bezeq, who also oversaw the news website Walla, as the communications minister at the time.

mergers and financial gains were reportedly among the benefits. Elovitch covered Netanyahu and his wife favorably in exchange.

According to the indictment summary, Netanyahu “dealted on several occasions with regulatory matters involving Mr. Elovitch” and “took specific actions to promote significant business interests of Mr. Elovitch of significant financial value.”

Netanyahu has been accused of bribery in this case in addition to fraud and breach of trust.

What other Israeli politicians face corruption charges?

Every Israeli prime minister has been the subject of a corruption investigation since 1996.

1996-99

In his first year as prime minister, Netanyahu was the subject of an investigation that included a kickback scheme and influence-peddling.

1999-2001

Ehud Barak, the prime minister, was the subject of a probe into allegations of bribery, money laundering, and illegal campaign financing.

2001-06

In the late 1990s, Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, was charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in the Greek Island case.

2006-09

Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Jerusalem, was found guilty of accepting $ 430,000 in bribes while he was mayor. He was detained in February 2016 for tax evasion, falsifying corporate records, and fraud.

2009-21

As it increases threats against Venezuela, the US has reopened a military base in Puerto Rico. Phil Lavelle from Al Jazeera has been monitoring military activity there.