Your Party’s Messy Public Breakdown Shows It Has Big Questions to Answer

On Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn launched a new membership portal for the new left party, alongside details of its founding conference. In a video message, Corbyn struck a hopeful note about democracy and inclusivity – and attempted to gloss over his very public fallout with one-time party co-founder Zarah Sultana.

“We’ve had some fraught days in the last week, as you will no doubt be very aware, and to be honest we haven’t covered ourselves in glory,” Corbyn said. “But what is most important is this: we all agree about the plans for the conference and the roadmap to get to it.”

The founding conference, set to take place in November, will be “the most democratic this country has ever seen”, he added, involving “thousands of founding members”, with many more taking part online. “One member, one vote. Open, inclusive, grassroots-led – this is what democracy really looks like.”

But those eagerly awaiting the new party’s launch have been burned before. Last week’s debacle left many with a profound sense of disillusionment, and Corbyn’s announcement prompts a number of questions. Is the launch finally for real this time, or will there be more fiascos? Beyond warm words, what will party democracy actually look like? And – perhaps most importantly of all – can those involved in the embarrassing power struggle be trusted to be the custodians of a new party?

As the left looks for answers to these questions and tries to predict what will happen next, a thorough run-down of how we got to this point bears a closer look.

Collective beginnings.

The British left has been in the doldrums for decades. Hopes were reignited when socialist stalwart Corbyn was catapulted, almost by accident, to the leadership of the Labour party from 2015 to 2019. In the years since, and with a growing sense that both main parties are on the brink of collapse, there has been mounting anticipation for a new party of the left.

Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system makes it difficult to start a new electoral vehicle. With the public profile from his tenure as Labour leader, Corbyn has widely been viewed as the one figure capable of launching a new party that could successfully break through.

Corbyn, however, is not famous for his decisiveness. He likes to lead by consent, and is happier as a figurehead giving voice to social movements than as a strategic visionary or organisational theorist.

A further problem is the inherited political culture of the Labour party. The tendency is always to work out the substantive matters through secretive negotiations between MPs, trade union leaders, and various bureaucrats and insiders. Publicly, there are long silences, punctuated by saccharine shows of unity which only reflect the political lowest common denominator. The other inheritance from Labour is a series of personal grudges and factional tensions amongst many of the key figures involved behind the scenes.

It was in this inauspicious context that, in 2024, a new organisation called Collective was formed, claiming to be “the engine that will drive the formation of a new, mass-membership political party of the left in the UK”.

Collective was a motley assemblage of prominent national figures, independent candidates and elected officials, as well as local and national organisations. By most accounts (even according to one of its founders), it was dysfunctional, and many saw it as controlled in a top-down undemocratic way by individuals like Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s former chief of staff – already controversial from her record in Labour.

In the wake of a particularly disillusioning meeting of Collective in September 2024, a group of individuals, including Corbyn himself, his former public relations adviser James Schneider, North Tyneside Mayor Jamie Driscoll, campaigner Andrew Feinstein, former MP Beth Winter and Salma Yaqoob, former leader of the Respect party, started a new process built around a ‘memorandum of understanding’ (MOU) expressing their shared commitment to building a new party of the left.

This ‘MOU group’ struggled to make progress too. Though there were formal means for collective decision-making, Corbyn was still the key player, and ​​multiple sources familiar with the proceedings have explained that decisions would often be reversed on the informal suggestion that “I’m not sure Jeremy wants to do that”.

To address this, and to satisfy Corbyn’s desire for a broad process, the MOU group was expanded in mid-June 2025 into an ‘organising committee’ (OC). Amongst others, it brought in the four pro-Palestine independent MPs – Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed – as well as Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman, former trade union leader Mark Serwotka, and independent candidate Leanne Mohamad. Crucially, it also brought in Zarah Sultana, as well as Karie Murphy, complete with her close personal relationship with Corbyn and her allies from Collective.

Early tensions.

The OC began its work in a climate of distrust. Based on experiences in both Labour and in Collective, the faction that eventually coalesced around Sultana was terrified of Murphy and her allies taking control. These divisions would lead to disaster. With a tight timetable, things collapsed acrimoniously when snap decisions had to be made.

At the OC meeting on 24 June, Murphy’s faction pushed for a decision on the new party’s structure and leadership, to be taken at a meeting the following week. However, the group only circulated its proposal on 1 July, just two days before that subsequent meeting.

The proposal, drafted by Liverpool councillor Alan Gibbons on behalf of Collective, was wide-reaching. As well as arguing for Corbyn to be sole party leader, it defined the project in the language of the Marxist left as “a class-based party” aimed at building “socialism from below” – an abrupt departure from the MOU group’s documents which had originally been the basis of the discussions.

Collective’s rivals saw this as a power-grab. The four independent MPs, meanwhile, were alarmed that the proposal did not reflect the kind of “broad church” they thought they had agreed to join.

In response, Feinstein drafted an alternate paper suggesting that Corbyn and Sultana be co-leaders and circulated it on 2 July – the day before the meeting. In a very short space of time, the committee was forced to work through some quite fundamental questions about the party’s structure and its political basis.

There had already been a series of private meetings in previous months where Corbyn, who had always seemed reluctant to lead the new party, had signalled his openness to the idea of co-leadership with Sultana. When asked his opinion at the OC’s Zoom meeting on 3 July, Corbyn made an even-handed comment that both papers had pros and cons, but said he was “happy to work with [Sultana] in any capacity”. Later, in the Zoom text chat, Corbyn had meekly suggested that the vote be delayed and that instead they needed “a group to take us forward” – but this was never read out in the meeting.

While Gibbons’ paper was too wide-ranging, Feinstein’s paper was too abrupt. It said little beyond stating that Corbyn and Sultana should be interim co-leaders. It did nothing to define their powers and responsibilities, nor how to resolve things if they disagreed. Nevertheless, 70% of the OC voted in favour of Feinstein’s paper. Murphy’s faction abstained, protesting that the vote wasn’t legitimate.

The first implosion.

Minutes later, despite the agreed secrecy of the group, Sultana announced publicly that she and Corbyn would co-lead the founding of a new party. No warning was given. Corbyn and the other MPs were shocked. The committee collapsed into recriminations.

Among the most outraged was Corbyn’s wife, Laura Alvarez. Alvarez had not been formally invited to the OC, but nonetheless had been attending the secret meetings and had insisted on being added to the committee’s WhatsApp group, despite the reservations of the group’s chairs.

“If Zarah doesn’t delete this tweet in 1 hour. We will resign ok”, Alvarez told the OC, soon adding: “If the disgusting media comes to my house to harass Jeremy, I’ll say they stole Zarah’s phone, and it’s not true.”

According to multiple sources, this is also where trust broke down between Sultana and the four independent MPs. At the meeting on 3 July, all four of them had voted in favour of Sultana as co-leader, but they felt betrayed by the way the decision was announced without any consultation.

Sultana’s announcement also opened the door to leaks which led things almost to the point of no return. Most significant were those to journalist Gabriel Pogrund at the Sunday Times, which revealed much of the gory details of what had happened.

Sultana inferred that these leaks were the result of deliberate hostile briefings against her by another committee member, and went as far as naming another committee member who she accused of “crossing class lines”, and saying that “others who refuse to call this out are enabling this behaviour”. When others tried to defuse the situation, Sultana shot them down, saying “it’s not appropriate for you to tell me what’s helpful or not”.

The first re-launch.

Despite the explosive argument, negotiations resumed, and soon things were moving again. The OC was dissolved, and Corbyn, Sultana and the other independent MPs were empowered to assemble a working group organising the party’s founding conference.

On 24 July, Corbyn and Sultana jointly announced co-leadership of the new party, known by the interim name of Your Party. After months of waiting, the project was finally taking shape. The launch was greeted with massive enthusiasm among many on the left. 600,000 people signed up to the party’s mailing list in one week.

Internally, a balance seemed to have been struck. To ensure peace between the factions, the Peace and Justice Project Ltd (PJP), controlled by Corybn and by Murphy’s factional allies, would own the mailing list, while MOU Operations Ltd, a holding entity controlled by Feinstein, Driscoll and Winter (Murphy’s rivals), would own the donations. That way, no one faction would have a monopoly on party assets.

However, already tensions were re-emerging. There was some dispute between Corbyn and Sultana as to what they had actually agreed. Sultana insisted the MPs were only assembling the working group, and should afterwards have no privileged role. Corbyn’s team viewed the MPs as continuing to oversee the entire process. Things became paralysed once more as neither side would accept the other’s proposals for the executive team.

The second implosion.

Without Sultana’s approval, Corbyn’s team assembled an interim executive team led by key allies of Murphy, and announced a process for the founding conference. Sultana feared that a new membership system was about to be launched, handing control of both the finances and the mailing list to Murphy’s faction, and therefore giving them complete power.

Faced with this prospect, Sultana’s team acted unilaterally again, launching a membership system (access to the system has since been revoked from anyone outside of PJP). This email directed people to a new platform where both finances and data would be managed by MOU, controlled by Murphy’s rivals.

Corbyn and the other four MPs were outraged. They issued a statement saying that legal advice was being taken, describing the launch as “an unauthorised email”, and instructing supporters to ignore the email and to cancel any direct debits they had set up. Sultana hit back, claiming she had been subjected to “a sexist boys’ club”, and calling out Murphy by name.

Further escalations followed, and by Friday evening, Sultana was instructing defamation lawyers. As confirmed by the Telegraph, Sultana’s membership portal has since been taken offline by the software provider after receiving complaints of “potential fraudulent activity”.

The second re-launch.

A number of petitions and open letters were launched over the next few days, begging both sides to get things back on track. Initially, there were positive signs, with Sultana retracting her threats of legal action on Sunday evening. Rumours circulated over the weekend that talks were ongoing, and there might be a joint statement or even a membership re-launch later in the week.

Then, on Wednesday, it happened. An email went out, alongside a video message from Corbyn announcing that the membership portal was being launched, and the conference would go ahead as outlined in the original roadmap. The email also announced that the conference would be held in Liverpool from 29-30 November, with members debating and amending the party’s founding documents. Many will have breathed a sigh of relief.

But unfortunately, there is still plenty of cause for concern. Conspicuously, all the publicity featured Corbyn and not Sultana, who made no public indication of support for the announcement until later in the day when she posted on X/Twitter encouraging people to join the party, saying she will “remain a fierce advocate for the grassroots” and telling those who joined the previous system: “data and membership will be migrated across in due course.”

Further, the privacy policy has been updated to cut MOU Operations Ltd out of the picture, and to redirect all of the data and funds to Your Party Ltd, where Corbyn and the four independent MPs have majority decision-making power. Sources close to the process have confirmed that at the time of the launch, Sultana and MOU were out of the loop, MOU’s bank account and data were yet to be handed over to Your Party Ltd, and the launch had been a unilateral move by Corbyn’s team.

According to sources close to the MPs, Sultana had been ready to publicly endorse the launch and to encourage others to sign up, but was waiting for three specific concessions from Corbyn’s team: some sort of conciliatory statement from Corbyn to smooth over the public rows; deletion of certain antagonistic tweets; and a copy of the legal letters sent alleging a data breach. Corbyn’s side claims to have warned Sultana ahead of the launch, but it nevertheless seems to have been planned unilaterally.

Also concerning is that the membership registration form stipulates that in order to join, “you cannot be a member of another political party”. This is not an unusual rule for an established political party, but it seems bizarre as the condition of entry to a founding process that is supposed to be unifying a left currently fragmented across a whole range of small parties.

The devil is in the details.

Whether a process genuinely empowers the membership or can be effectively dictated by the conference’s organisers does come down to the fine details, and the announcement prompts as many questions as it answers. A deliberative assembly sounds participatory on paper, but can it make decisions, or will it be merely advisory? What will be the process by which discussions are turned into proposals? Who will be able to submit amendments, and through what process? If there are hundreds of amendments, how will they be composited, prioritised, and turned into a manageable agenda for the conference?

Beyond the vague details on Your Party’s website, the only public information we have relating to these questions comes from a Zoom meeting on Monday evening via Joshua Virasami, a social movement activist who was on Your Party’s interim executive team and was working directly on the regional assemblies as part of the founding process until last week. Before that, he had been a voting member of the OC, as well as the co-chair of its operational team.

What Virasami had to say about the founding conference was not reassuring. When asked about these key democratic questions on the details of the founding process, he said that even he had not seen specific answers to them. Virasami described the democratic process as “a black box” and explained that he couldn’t answer the question of how we can trust such a black box, saying only that “The democratic process is Karie Murphy’s brief” and “Murphy would have created and signed off on that democratic process”.

The idea that Murphy is in control of the process will not reassure those who are concerned that party democracy is being lost amid factional power-grabs. However, having spoken to a number of people who have worked directly on different parts of this, there is another likely explanation for the lack of transparency around the process to found the new party, besides wilful factional duplicity: it may simply be that the details have not yet been worked out, and that no detailed planning document exists.

Whatever the case, until there is more transparency and there are more details announced, the only way anyone can have faith that the process will be democratic is if they trust Murphy personally. And they would need to trust her not just as a neutral and non-factional arbiter, but as an expert on what constitutes a well-designed democratic process.

Even with the best of intentions, a supposedly democratic process can easily descend into a bureaucratic stitch-up if it is rushed and inadequately planned. If anyone is to have faith in Your Party’s founding conference as a genuinely democratic exercise, the key demand must now be for full transparency and scrutiny of detailed conference plans. Until those plans are forthcoming, we need to be coming up with our own proposals for how to address potential pitfalls. That way, even if those with power fail us, perhaps we can salvage something from the ashes ourselves.