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The new left-wing party temporarily known as Your Party has descended into public chaos just months after its launch, with co-founders Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana now publicly clashing over the party’s direction and membership process.
On Thursday, Sultana launched a membership portal for the new left-wing party, only for Corbyn and fellow Independent Alliance MPs to immediately disavow it as “unauthorised” and seek legal advice.
Sultana responded by complaining about 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.
Against the backdrop of internal strife, concerns are mounting about whether Your Party can avoid the sort of democratic deficits that backers believe have plagued the Labour party for decades, and which the new party was meant to solve.
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As a result, a new group launched on Thursday within the party, called ‘the Democratic Bloc.’
The group is a response to concerns that decisions are being made behind closed doors by a small circle around Corbyn, potentially replicating the top-down approach that alienated some Labour members during his leadership.
It was, in a sense, a timely launch – but was overshadowed by the open spats at a leadership level. To the Democratic Bloc, it proved their point.
The party’s founding conference, scheduled for before New Year, was meant to establish democratic structures and policy priorities – but the current turmoil raises questions about whether it can deliver the grassroots-driven alternative to Labour that supporters hoped for.
It’s in this context that Mish Rahman, co-founder of the Democratic Bloc, has emerged as a voice pushing for ‘genuine member control’ over Your Party’s future.
A former left-wing member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, Rahman has organised over 500 activists so far to demand that the founding conference be truly democratic rather than a rubber-stamping exercise for predetermined decisions. His group represents a faction determined to prevent Your Party from repeating what they see as Labour’s failures – centralised control, member exclusion, and the sidelining of grassroots voices in favour of leadership diktat.
Mish Rahman spoke to Byline Times about the project.
Josiah Mortimer: Following the chaos this week – with Sultana launching a membership portal and then it being cancelled by Corbyn’s side – what are your thoughts?
Mish Rahman: We launched the Democratic Bloc today explicitly stating, nobody is coming to save us, the grassroots must get ready to deliver democracy for the new left party. Thursday showed that this is true, you cannot rely on an individual or individuals, collectively we must take control of the direction of the party, its bigger than any one individual, our future depends on it
Josiah Mortimer: You were a left winger on Labour’s NEC. Are you feeling more at home now in Your Party?
Mish Rahman: The Labour Party made big mistakes, even under Corbyn. Too often it failed to respond to the real needs of the day because it acted more like an election machine than a democratic party. The old system of people at the top telling everyone else what to do has bred distrust and opened the door to far-right populism. People don’t want lectures from politicians in suits who don’t share their life experience when bills are rising, wages are low, and the cost of living keeps climbing.
This new party must not repeat those mistakes. It’s a rare chance for the left to build…