Your Party’s Inaugural Conference Can’t Save It

Image - Chatham house

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Your Party, the party launched in July by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, is barely five months old, but it already feels like its political relevance ended long ago. 800,000 sign-ups initially suggested otherwise, however even before their inaugural conference, held on the weekend of 29/30th November, the state of its management has declined so much it has started to feel like a farce.

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The interest in the party in July makes sense. Keir Starmer’s choice for Labour to govern like a subpar Reform UK tribute act created a clear political vacuum for those on the left who had long been alienated by and dissatisfied with the party’s shift since Corbyn stepped down. With Reform consistently at the top of the polls, the other end of the political spectrum seemed lacking. Launching with such recognisable names – Corbyn himself – ensured there was a clear target audience, and at the beginning Your Party seemed to have a core target audience and goals. The influx of interest showed there was an appetite for change, at least initially.

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But, as we have seen, goals and audiences mean nothing if you can’t sustain them by presenting a united front and clear policies. That’s even without mentioning the massive challenge Your Party faced by being a, well, new party. While the UK’s two-party system has been increasingly questioned recently, the fundamental fact remains that under FPTP smaller political parties are at a disadvantage – even more so when they first form. The legacy Your Party is following in this way is not great: both the SDP in 1981 and Change UK in 2019 completely failed to make any long-term impact or gain power, despite initial interest at time of forming.

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Nevertheless, the way Your Party has behaved so far completely outstrips their predecessors in terms of how fast it has fallen. Far from becoming a ‘home for progressive politics’ as suggested by Corbyn’s former adviser at the time of launch, it has turned into nothing more than another opportunity for commentators to bring out the ‘People’s Front of Judea’ Monty Python clip. The drama would be too much to recount here, but it has involved multiple legal threats, two rival membership portals , and resignations, all apparently conducted within a ‘sexist boys’ club’. Frustratingly, the saga has become much more about the individual personalities and egos of Corbyn and Sultana, rather than the members-led approach people were led to expect.

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By the eve of the conference, two Independent Alliance MPs, Adnan Hussein and Iqbal Mohamed, had already quit the party. Hussein in particular cited ‘persistent infighting’ and a toxic culture as reasons. A central issue in their disagreements was over how socially progressive Your Party should be, which has still not been clarified – odd considering that is exactly what, in an ideal world, a ‘left’ party would be about. It again speaks to the lack of direction or clear policies coming from the leadership, which this members-led approach isn’t an entirely satisfying explanation for.

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You would think that after this a show of unity would be even more important to stabilise the situation. Instead, Corbyn was unable to even call Sultana a friend, instantly overshadowing any hope of throwing off the past to present a way forward at the conference. What the conference is now known for is Sultana’s decision to boycott the first day. This was in response to Socialist Workers Party members and others being excluded, due to the party’s clause of excluding those who were already a member of another party. Fundamentally, this saga is just not relevant or interesting to ordinary people outside this bubble. It conforms to all the worse stereotypes of the Left. If the intention is to win over a broader audience, as it stands this is certainly not happening.

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The only real clarification from the conference about the future of Your Party was in its permanent name – given four options, members chose to stick with the current name – and an extremely narrow vote for a collective leadership to run its operations. While this at least saves us from the prospect of a Corbyn-Sultana leadership battle, it is unclear how this will work in practice or act as an efficient way of internal governing. Moreover, despite these developments intended to signal a way forward, the boycott the day before is now all the headlines talk about.

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What the weekend did was cement the idea that Your Party is not a sustainable political project in its current form. It didn’t signify a fresh start at all, rather dragging out the incredibly unproductive infighting and factionalism we have already seen. Meanwhile, the Green Party has been spending the autumn taking advantage of Your Party’s flailing by occupying this space on the political spectrum, leading to a huge membership increase at 175,000 and counting. By alienating those who were interested and completely failing to appeal to those outside this narrow political bubble, Your Party seems to have let the moment pass by. It remains to be seen when or how it will come back again.