The new left party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be called Your Party after a vote of members, but bitter divisions were revealed at its weekend conference.
More than 37% of members voted to make permanent the name Your Party, which was temporarily adopted when it launched earlier this year. Others in the shortlist received 25.23% votes for the Many, 25.23% for the Popular Alliance and 14.19% for our party.
Sultana, who is at odds with Corbyn, reignited tensions on Sunday with a scathing attack on those “at the top” of the party after she boycotted the first day of the conference in protest against the expulsion of several members belonging to the Socialist Workers Party.
At a members’ meeting in Liverpool and online members voted by 51.6% to 48.4% for the party to be run by a new member-led executive, taking on a number of public-facing roles. Corbyn, whose preferred model was for a sole leader, warned that he believed “it is harder for the public to understand things” when a group of people are running the party, rather than a single leader.
As members sang Bella Ciao – the Italian anti-fascist folk song – before the conference concluded, Corbyn appealed for unity and said he understood “all the frustrations” surrounding its founding. To thunderous applause, he also thanked Kerry Murphy, his former chief of staff during his leadership of Labour, who has become a figure of speech to some in his party.
The support of members of the collective leadership model prevents a potentially explosive head-to-head contest between Corbyn and Sultana. But the party executive will review various options, leaving open the possibility that a more traditional leadership structure will be in place ahead of a general election in two years’ time.
Sultana had earlier appreciated members’ support for the collective leadership model, saying she had been fighting for “maximum member democracy” since the inception of the new party. However others in the party dismissed this as disingenuous, saying that their main demand from the beginning had been “co-leadership” with Corbyn.
Speaking from the main stage later on Sunday, Sultana expressed regret for his role in what he described as “obstacles” surrounding the formation of the party. The controversy over the money, its name and Sultana’s unilateral steps have actually announced the launch of your party, leaving the party divided and two independent MPs deciding to leave the party.
However, he added that the party had to “confront” Saturday’s events before it could move forward, adding: “Evictions, restrictions and censorship of the conference venue are unacceptable.
“This is undemocratic. This is an attack on the members and this movement. And these decisions were taken at the top, not by you,” he said to loud applause from some members, while others remained seated.
Sultana’s opponents in the party, including Corbyn supporters, privately accused her of trying to undermine him by appealing to a puritanical vision of what a socialist party should be.
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He also accused his faction of excluding socially conservative Muslims and paving the way for the polarization of far-left groups to influence the direction of the new party.
After Sultana’s speech, the debates became heated and demands were made to remove the current leadership from the stage. Sultana also reiterated her earlier call to make your party an anti-Zionist party and said, “We must break all ties with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel”.
Your party also won other positions supported by Sultana and her faction, including members being able to hold dual membership of other political groups. Members voted to allow dual membership by 69.2% to 30.8%.
The latter vote is significant in the backdrop of infighting, in which he refused to enter the conference hall on Saturday in a show of solidarity with delegates who were expelled because of links to other leftist parties, in what he described as a “witch-hunt”.
Members of other parties will be eligible to join only if their party is confirmed by the party’s new executive and conference as being in line with the party’s values.
Corbyn said on Saturday that entry was granted on the condition that members not form a coalition with other parties registered with the Electoral Commission. Opening the conference on Saturday, he called for unity and acknowledged that “mistakes” had been made in the party’s founding.
The Islington North MP said the party had “a unique opportunity” to establish a “socialist party of mass appeal” against “the Tripoli of political thinking in Parliament”.
But the party’s foundations have been overshadowed by internal strife, resulting in failed membership launches and threats of legal action. Two other independent MPs, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohammed, withdrew from the party’s establishment process partly due to infighting.
Those involved are trying to capture the momentum of the Green Party under its new leader Jack Polanski amid a battle to become the leading voice on Labour’s left.
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