Chaos has unfolded for ‘Your Party’ today, as Zarah Sultana has publicly split from co-founder Jeremy Corbyn in a dispute over the launch of party memberships.
Sultana has branded the group as a “sexist boys’ club”, wreaking havoc on the not-yet-fully-launched party.
The party was launched by Corbyn and Sultana in late July this year as a “new kind of political party” on the left of British politics “rooted in our communities, trade unions and social movements.”
Corbyn and Sultana are both are former Labour MPs that were suspended from the party under Keir Starmer’s leadership – Corbyn in 2020 over antisemitism accusations and Sultana in 2024 after rebelling against the government and voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
They are joined in the Your Party by four independent MPs elected in 2024: Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed.
Why have membership sign-ups been disputed?
On Thursday [18th September] morning Sultana posted a link encouraging supporters to sign up for Your Party membership.
Supporters that had signed up for updates about the party via email were also contacted about joining as a party member.
Membership of the party was offered at a standard rate of £55 per year, or a concessionary rate of £25 per year.
By 1:30pm, Sultana claimed that the party had reached 20,000 members – potentially bringing in over £1 million for the party.
But, all was not as it seemed.
At 2:07pm, Corbyn and the four other MPs associated with the party released an “urgent message” to supporters, instructing them not to sign up under Sultana’s link and “immediately” cancel any direct debits.
The statement from Corbyn and others claimed that the email sent by Sultana had been “unauthorised” and “should be ignored by all supporters.” They also stated that “legal advice is being taken.”
In response, Sultana accused the party of being a “sexist boys’ club” in a statement, in which she also said that she had “been treated appallingly and excluded completely” by the party.
Sultana claimed that she had decided to launch the membership portal independent of the rest of the party after being “sidelined” by the group’s other members.
She raised concerns about the fact that the group was “blocking the gender-balanced committee that Jeremy and I signed up to.” Sultana is the only female MP currently associated with Your Party.
Sultana also voiced concern that Karie Murphy, a key Corbyn ally, and her associates had been given “sole financial control of members’ money and sole constitutional control over our conference.”
She stated that all money raised by the party, including through the membership fees that she had so far collected, would go to MOU Operations, a company set up to manage the party’s funds, until its official founding conference later this year.
She called on Corbyn to meet with her, and “make public all agreed structures, processes and decision-making protocols.”
For now at least Sultana remains committed to the party, and she ended her statement by saying that the “democratic founding conference” of the party “will take place in late November.”
Corbyn vs. Sultana
It’s clear from this dispute that all has not been plain sailing in the first few months of Your Party.
This is not the first time that tensions between Corbyn and Sultana over the leadership and direction of the party have emerged.
In early July, when Sultana announced the launch of a new left-wing party with Corbyn, it seemed as if she had done this without his explicit backing or knowledge.
Responding to her pre-emptive launch of the party, he simply said that talks were “ongoing.” It was only later in the month that Corbyn formally announced the creation of the new party.
The party is yet to be officially launched – its inaugural conference will be in November – and it doesn’t even have an official name, and yet it seems that factions and tensions are already beginning to emerge.
This does not bode well for a party that aims to capture left-wing sentiment from increasingly disillusioned Labour voters, particularly in the face of the Green Party’s eco-populism under newly elected leader Zack Polanski.
Featured images via HM Government.
