Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana Are on Rival Slates for Your Party Leadership

Jeremy Corbyn will be heading up his own slate of candidates for Your Party’s executive committee, as he and fellow co-founder Zarah Sultana go head to head for control of the new left party.

Corbyn, the MP for Islington North and former Labour leader, confirmed on Friday 16 January that he would be standing as a candidate for Your Party’s upcoming central executive committee (CEC) election with new campaign group ‘The Many’. 

Corbyn called it “our chance to get Your Party back on track”, while a party source told Novara Media that it’s “good” that debates are finally being had “out in the open”.

Sultana will also be standing on her own slate, dubbed Grassroots Left, which was released last week. Corbyn’s name was initially included at the top of Sultana’s list of candidates, but it was later revealed that his team specifically asked for his name not to be used. Corbyn was reportedly “very upset” that this was done without his consent and falsely gave the impression that he endorsed the Grassroots Left list. 

Your Party’s membership voted in favour of a collective leadership model at the founding conference in November, meaning the party will be controlled by the CEC rather than a single leader, or pair of co-leaders. 

An insider described the inaugural CEC elections as a “proxy war” earlier this week, but a source from inside Your Party told Novara Media that candidates have “legitimate disagreements” about the direction and strategy of the new left party, and that members getting to choose a leadership team that reflects their issues is “what building a democratic party is all about”. 

The Your Party source added: “These elections can draw a line in the sand and empower a new CEC to move forward and focus on the issues that matter.”

Corbyn’s slate of candidates also includes ‘independent alliance’ MPs Shockat Adam (Leicester South) and Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr), independent councillor and former Labour MP Laura Smith, and senior trade unionist and national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign Louise Regan. 

A southwest candidate for Corbyn’s slate, Jenn Forbes, told Novara Media that it “isn’t about individuals” and “it was actually a small group of us that came together first and then went to Jeremy – not the other way around!”

Sultana’s Grassroots Left said it will run on a platform of maximum member democracy and has called for “no more top-down” leadership of Your Party. The Grassroots Left candidate list includes Fire Brigades Union officer Riccardo La Torre, member of the Democratic Socialists for Your Party Max Shanly and Unison activist Anjona Roy. 

The founding and establishment of Your Party – which currently has 55,000 members – has been marred by public disagreements and factional splits between co-founders Corbyn and Sultana, and their teams. These spats stretch back as far as July 2025, when Corbyn’s team briefed the Sunday Times against Sultana after she announced the formation of the party with Corbyn without his agreement.

In September, Sultana was accused of launching the party membership portal and gathering data and donations in another unilateral move. She followed up with accusations of sexism and a “boys’ club”, directed at the independent alliance MPs and Corbyn’s former chief of staff as leader of the opposition, Karie Murphy.

The breakdown of a power-sharing agreement between the Corbyn and Sultana camps, with control of members’ data and money split between MoU Operations Ltd (MoU) – a company directed by anti-apartheid activist Andrew Feinstein, former North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll and former Labour MP Beth Winter – and Corbyn’s allies from the Peace and Justice Project and leader of the opposition team, prompted threats of legal action.

Driscoll has since joined the Green party, while Feinstein has endorsed Sultana’s CEC slate. 

In a statement, Corbyn said: “I want Your Party to unite our communities on the issues that affect people’s lives: rising bills, soaring rents, and grotesque inequality. 

“That is what it means to provide a real left alternative – one that stands up for the policies being demanded by millions of people across the country: public ownership, wealth taxes, rent controls, disability justice, environmental sustainability and an end to war.

“By fostering a culture of inclusivity, diversity and collaboration, we can build a truly mass, democratic party that mobilises people everywhere. And we can finally build a society for the many, not the few.”

Your Party’s CEC will elect 24 seats in total. Eighteen are ‘ordinary member’ seats, with each English region electing two representatives, at least one of which must be a woman. 

Scotland and Wales get one seat each for a representative, and according to the Your Party website, members in Scotland and Wales are in the process of “establishing their own autonomous structures and will democratically decide how they relate to the UK party”. 

Four seats will be elected for public office holders (MPs, mayors, councillors etc) from among the whole membership.

Ballot papers are expected to be issued for the CEC elections on 9 February with results announced several weeks later.