On Saturday, AAP party co-founder Zarah Sultana said she would skip the first day of the newly formed group’s inaugural two-day conference because of serious disagreements over who could attend.
What’s your party?
Following the last UK general election in 2024, which the Labor Party won with a landslide ending 14 years of rule by the Conservative Party, Corbyn and four other left-leaning independents – Shawkat Adam, Adnan Hussein, Ayub Khan and Iqbal Mohammed – formed the Independent Coalition, which focused heavily on taking a pro-Palestinian position on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Corbyn, 76, stepped down as leader of the Labor Party in 2019 after another election defeat to the Conservatives.
Among other issues, Corbyn had long faced allegations of anti-Semitism during his leadership of the Labor Party, which many described as a “witch-hunt” against him and his supporters.
In 2020, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its findings that Labor had broken the law on anti-Semitic racism. This partly attributed “serious failings” to Corbyn’s leadership of the party.
In response, Corbyn said that anti-Semitism was “absolutely abhorrent”, but added: “The scale of the problem was dramatically exaggerated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by most of the media.”
As a result, he was immediately suspended from the party. He was readmitted in 2020, but ultimately left the Labor Party altogether in 2024 – after almost 60 years of membership – to become an independent MP.
At the end of July this year, he announced he would be founding a new Socialist Party with fellow independent MP Zara Sultana, 32, who became an independent after leaving Labor on 3 July. Other members of the Independent Alliance also joined. Its aim was to present the new party as a credible left-wing alternative to the ruling Labor Party.
In a statement at the time, Corbyn and Sultana said: “The system is rigged when the government says there is no money for the poor, but billions for war.”
The statement said he envisioned a party that was “rooted in our communities, trade unions and social movements”.
“As a party, we must come together and unite because division and disunity will not serve the interests of the people we seek to represent,” Corbyn said during the inaugural conference, which took place in the northwest English city of Liverpool and ended with a rousing rendition of Bella Ciao – an Italian anti-fascist folk song – by attendees.
Why did Sultana refuse to come on the first day?
Sultana announced on Saturday that she would not attend the event in protest against one of her supporters being denied entry and several others being expelled from the party for allegedly being members of the far-left Socialist Workers Party.
Sultana told the Press Association news agency: “I was disappointed to see that on the morning of our founding conference, people who had traveled from all over the country, who had spent a lot of money on their train fares, on hotels, to be able to attend this conference, were told that they had been expelled.”
He said: “It’s a culture that is reminiscent of the Labor Party, how witch hunts were conducted on the eve of conference, how members were treated with contempt.”
However, an unnamed spokesperson for your party defended the decision to ban members of the Socialist Workers Party. The spokesperson told UK media: “Members of another national political party signed up to your party in breach of clearly stated membership rules – and these rules were enforced.”
Sultana attended the second day of the conference on Sunday, when she apologized for what she described as a “hiccup” during the party launch.
However, he added, “Expulsion, banning and censorship at conferences is unacceptable. It is undemocratic. It is an attack on the members and on this movement.”
What else have the leaders disagreed on?
The newly formed party is surrounded by disagreements on many issues.
Grant
In November, senior figures including Corbyn, Iqbal Mohammed and Adnan Hussain accused Sultana of withholding more than £800,000 ($1.06m) in donations to the party after it was first announced in July.
Since the party was still in the process of being formally registered as a legal entity, the funds were temporarily collected by a private company called MOU Operations Limited, which is controlled by Sultana.
The BBC reported on 8 November that an unnamed spokesperson for Sultana said she was “in the process of transferring all funds and data” but was carrying out “due diligence as part of this process”.
According to a statement from AAP party leaders, as of mid-November, the party had received a “small portion” of the funds. There has been no recent update on the status of the remaining funds.
leadership model
There was disagreement over how the newly formed party should be led.
While Sultana was pushing for a group of leaders to reflect grassroots representation – what she calls “maximum member democracy” – Corbyn said a single, traditional leader would be more effective.
In the end, the party voted for a set of leaders by a narrow margin of 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent.
This means that the party will now be led by a group of leaders, overseen by a party member who is not a member of Parliament.
Ultimately, many see the problems besetting the party as a battle for control between Corbyn and Sultana.
UK media have reported that Corbyn supporters were irritated by Sultana’s decision to hold a pre-conference rally the night before the conference started. While he described it as your party’s event, he claimed that it was completely organized by him.
party abandonment
Several members of the new party, including some acting MPs, have already left the party as Corbyn supporters accuse Sultana of trying to undermine them and vice versa. On 14 November, Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain announced in an ex post that he had decided to quit.
“The culture around the party has become increasingly dominated by infighting, factional competition and the struggle for power, position and influence, rather than a shared commitment to the common good,” Hussain wrote in a statement.
“Instead of openness, collaboration and an outward focus, the environment has often felt toxic, exclusionary and extremely depressing,” he said.
After much deliberation, I have made the difficult decision to step out of the process of running your party.
I wish all the best to those who will continue to work on this endeavor and hope that their hard work will yield the desired results. pic.twitter.com/zz4EevEIzu
– Adnan Hussain MP (@AdnanHussainMP) 14 November 2025
A week later, Dewsbury and Batley MP Iqbal Mohammed also announced his departure.
In a statement posted to
My statement on my departure from your party. pic.twitter.com/NsoNLHU7xI
– Iqbal Mohammed MP (@iqbalmohamedMP) 21 November 2025
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