Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party Faces Big Internal Problems:

The United Kingdom’s new left-wing political group, Your Party, is already facing serious internal problems only months after it was created. The party was founded by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, but the two have recently become divided over how the party should be run. The troubles became public during the party’s first-ever conference in Liverpool. On the first day, Sultana announced she would not attend because one of her supporters was stopped from entering the event. Several others were expelled for allegedly being members of the far-left Socialist Workers Party. Sultana said she was disappointed that people who had travelled long distances and spent money to attend were suddenly removed. She compared the situation to the “witch-hunts” she said happened inside the Labour Party. A spokesperson for Your Party defended the expulsions, saying that people who were members of another national political party had broken clear membership rules. Sultana returned on the second day of the conference and apologised for the problems, but she also said the expulsions and bans were “undemocratic” and harmful to the movement. In November, the conflict grew worse when senior party figures — including Corbyn, Iqbal Mohamed and Adnan Hussain — accused Sultana of holding back more than £800,000 in donations raised when the party was announced in July. Since Your Party was not officially registered at the time, the money was collected through a private company controlled by Sultana, named MoU Operations Ltd. A spokesperson for Sultana told the BBC that she was transferring the money and checking everything carefully as part of “essential due diligence.” However, Your Party leaders said that by mid-November they had only received a small amount of the funds, and there have been no recent updates. The founders also clashed over how the new party should be structured. Sultana wanted a collective leadership, saying it would give more power to ordinary members. Corbyn argued that having one clear leader would be more effective. Members voted by a narrow margin — 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent — in favour of Sultana’s collective leadership system. Under this model, a group of leaders will run the party, and they will be overseen by a party member who is not an MP. However, this decision did not end the disagreements. Reports suggested Corbyn supporters were unhappy that Sultana held a rally the night before the conference and presented it as a Your Party event, even though they believed she organised it herself. Because of the ongoing infighting, several members have already left. On November 14, Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain quit, saying the party had become dominated by “infighting, factional competition and a struggle for power.” A week later, Dewsbury and Batley MP Iqbal Mohamed also resigned, saying he had faced “false allegations and smears.” Your Party was created after the 2024 general election by Corbyn, Sultana and four other left-leaning independent MPs. They hoped to build a new socialist alternative focused on community action, trade unions and anti-war values. But the early months of the party have been overshadowed by conflict. What was meant to be a fresh start for the left has instead turned into a battle for control, raising questions about the party’s future before it has fully begun.

NEWS