Feuds, boycotts and the birth of Your Party

Your Party has not got off to the smoothest of starts.

The path to this weekend’s founding conference has been overshadowed by splits in the party over everything from money, leadership to even its name.

The conference opened with a round of expulsions of members and founding MP Zarah Sultana boycotting the first day, in protest against what she called a “witch hunt”.

But after months of speculation, the party now has a name and a constitution that will see it led by a “revolutionary” new system – controlled by ordinary members rather than a single leader.

Some of the structural issues, at least, are settled, but a chaotic conference could set the tone and roadmap on where the start-up party goes from here.

The last time Jeremy Corbyn spoke from the stage in Liverpool’s ACC conference centre’s sprawling complex of glass and steel, he was leader of the Labour party.

Back then he spoke to a party scarred by infighting, just over a year away from a historic defeat in the 2019 general election.

As he stepped on stage to address his start-up political party on Saturday, much had changed.

Not only is Corbyn no longer the Labour leader, he has been kicked out of the party – an event that set him on the path to founding Your Party.

But he found himself once again addressing a party mired in factional in-fighting.

Absent from the audience was a quarter of the party’s parliamentary contingent after Sultana had refused to enter, angry over what she saw as “faceless bureaucrats” kicking out members who also belonged to the Socialist Workers Party.

Party officials said they had been expelled due to a clear breach of the rules that banned members from belonging to other political parties.

And they were not the only ones missing. The ambition had been to bring 13,000 delegates to Liverpool.

But that was revised down to 2,500 – which made the cavernous halls of the conference centre feel much emptier.

Outside the hall, as the wind whipped in off the Mersey, a small group of protesters sought to highlight the expulsions.

Speaking into the megaphone, Mish Rahman – a former member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee who quit the party claiming it had become “devoid of integrity” under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – turned on his new party.

Paraphrasing Angela Davis, the US Black Panther activist, Rahman called on members to “no longer accept the things you cannot change – change the things you cannot accept”.

He was echoing many points made by fellow ex-Labour member Max Shanly, who a day earlier had told a rally they needed to change the party “by any means necessary”.

Inside the echoey conference hall, Corbyn used his opening speech to call for unity, telling the audience that “division and disunity will not serve the interests of the people that we want to represent”.

The fledgling party had “a unique opportunity” to found “a socialist party of mass appeal” that could take on the mainstream parties of parliament, he said.

Despite Corbyn’s plea, much of the debate was dominated by discussions of a “purge” of members expelled for being members of other left-wing groups.

At points there was a sense the conference was being held together by a diminishing pool of good will. Asking exhausted organisers how the project was going normally elicited more tired laughs or horrified stares than answers.

But if the drama has drained the mood at the top, it did not kill the buzz on the floor.

During a break in proceedings, Nick Parker, a party organiser from Lincoln, said “disagreements are natural, because we all recognise that it’s a really important project that we’re trying to build”.

The feuds were “a side issue” detracting from broad agreement on a “political programme fighting back against cuts, against privatisation, against war, against racism”, he said.

Bonnie Ambrose agreed. There is “no perfect way” to found a party, she said.

“But by God, we need it – and what came across strongly was that we were all determined to make a difference,” she said.

Maybe this is just what democracy looks like.

A deeply unpopular Labour government, seen by the delegates here as copying the Reform UK message on immigration, has freed up yet more support to a left-wing alternative.

The Green Party, who have reached record membership numbers under self-described eco-populist Zack Polanski, do not fit the bill.

A group of young activists who do not want to give their names say while the Greens “talk the talk”, they fail to put the “working class at their heart”.

It is fair to say Your Party leaves Liverpool transformed from the party that arrived.

It has a name, a constitution, a leadership model and a clear promise that power will flow outwards to members and into communities.

There are no official policies yet, but the party’s political statement agreed at the conference defines it as a “member-led socialist party” with “the working class” at its heart.

We are told the party has 55,000 paid-up members. Asked if Your Party was now the largest explicitly socialist party in the UK, a coffee-stained party official replies “you’re god damn right”.

Branches will now be built across the UK, with local members given greater autonomy over selecting representatives and punishing those that fail to toe the party line.

The first-year strategy, also agreed at conference, sets out plans on training community organisers and a push to root the party in trade unions.

That vision feels a long way off in a half-empty hall.

Polling had once suggested up to 18% of the public would consider voting for a Corbyn-led party – potentially returning dozens of MPs in the fractured multi-party voting in a first past-the-post electoral.

That number has dropped to just 12% after months of public psychodrama.

The party will now get on with the job of putting the new rules into action – including choosing candidates for next May’s local elections.

It will also hope that it can put behind it months of public bickering and prove to the electorate it is a serious political force worth voting for.