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Backers of the fledgling new left-wing group temporarily known as ‘Your Party’ have expressed grave concerns over the public disagreements between backers of potential leaders Corbyn and Sultana.
Over 260 supporters of Your Party gathered online on Tuesday to discuss the fraught formation of the MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s yet-to-be-permanently-named movement.
The call, organised by the ‘Campaign for Mass Workers’ Party’, saw socialist supporters of the new initiative, including film-maker Ken Loach, hit out at the open warfare at the top of the organisation.
Last Thursday, Sultana launched a membership portal for the new left-wing party, only for Corbyn and fellow Independent Alliance MPs to quickly disavow it as “unauthorised” and seek legal advice. Sultana threatened to bring in defamation lawyers to contest statements from the other independent MPs involved.
Corbyn’s allies threatened to report her actions to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Sultana has now withdrawn her threat of legal action but questions remain over any potential ICO probe.
The extraordinary affair saw Sultana complain of being “sidelined” by her colleagues and being “effectively frozen out of the official accounts.” “I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club”, she said in a statement. The other five ‘Independent Alliance’ who are part of the project MPs are all men.
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In the mass supporters’ call on Tuesday, which Sultana was due to attend but pulled out amid a “family emergency”, host and veteran left-wing activist Audrey White said: “The working class know what betrayal is. We’ve been through too much to have that again.”
White was a British former shopworker and trade unionist who has been credited with successfully pushing for landmark anti-sexual harassment legislation in the UK.
She later stated to Corbyn and Sultana: “You can come along with us if you want. [But] the battles aren’t on the pages of The Guardian. This is our party.”
White also raised concerns about financial transparency, saying: “There’s no accounting for where the money is going” after Sultana’s membership launch saw a reported 20,000 supporters sign up, with some paying up to £55 a year. Corbyn and his allies insisted they would be cancelled and given refunds, while The Guardian reported that a ‘soft launch’ of membership is still being planned ahead of a conference in November.
Filmmaker and activist Ken Loach – who was expelled from Labour in 2021 over alleged links to campaign groups banned within the Labour Party – told attendees: “Those responsible for the manoeuvring should simply hang their heads in shame. It’s simply unacceptable. It fulfils a caricature that we suffer from the right-wing press…The power must stay at the bottom, it can’t stay at the top.”
Loach later added that while he respects both Corbyn and Sultana: “If they’re not going to do it right, they need to step aside.”
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