Zarah Sultana, co-founder of Your Party, was the featured speaker at a 400-strong meeting on Wednesday night hosted by Sheffield Trades Union Council. It was her first public appearance since last week\u2019s eruption of factional warfare pitting Sultana against former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his group of Independent Alliance MPs, threatening to split Your Party before it had even been launched.<\/p>\n
Sultana used her appearance to mend fences and confirm Your Party\u2019s launch, based on appeals for left unity. She found a willing audience.<\/p>\n
Zarah Sultana speaking at the Sheffield event [Photo: Zarah Sultana\/X]<\/p>\n
Just six days earlier, Sultana defied Corbyn, launching a membership registration portal without his prior approval. She emailed Your Party\u2019s database\u2014more than 850,000 sign-ups\u2014asking them to join. A second email, a few hours later, signed by Corbyn and his group of Independents (Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed, and Shockat Adam) declared that Sultana\u2019s email was \u201cunauthorised\u201d. They wrote: \u201cLegal advice is being taken… If any direct debits have been set up, they should be immediately cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sultana fired back that she had instructed specialist defamation lawyers, condemning \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d attacks against her. She said she was being frozen out of decision-making by a \u201csexist boys\u2019 club\u201d, citing Corbyn\u2019s backers, led by his former Chief of Staff Karie Murphy, with sole financial and constitutional control \u201cover our conference\u201d. She called for a meeting with Corbyn to agree on procedures for a founding conference, demanding, \u201cNo stitch-ups, no coronations: the members must decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
But on Sunday, Sultana fell on her sword. She announced she had withdrawn legal proceedings and was \u201cdetermined to reconcile\u201d. She was engaged in \u201congoing discussions with Jeremy\u201d, stating, \u201cBoth Jeremy and I remain committed to making this project a success\u2014and we can all confirm that the conference will go ahead as planned in November.\u201d <\/p>\n
In Sheffield, Sultana\u2019s audience of left-talking trade union bureaucrats, middle-class community activists, retirees, a large turnout of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Socialist Party (SP) and other pseudo-left groups, and some students made clear that all was forgiven. <\/p>\n
Sultana told them, her voice wavering, \u201cThe past few days have been truly regrettable, and I do want to say sorry for the part that I have played in that.\u201d This was all her audience required. They responded with sustained applause, cheering, stamping of feet, and even a standing ovation.<\/p>\n
The desired rapprochement was already in motion. <\/p>\n
A new membership portal launched by Corbyn earlier that day confirmed his faction\u2019s control. Corbyn, who rejected any fight against his Blairite opponents while Labour leader, shows no such timidity or cowardice toward the left. His registration portal announced a ban on members joining from other political parties, later amended to \u201cnational political parties\u201d. It is a measure aimed at blocking what Murphy has venomously decried as \u201cthe Marxist sects\u201d: groups whose \u201cclass struggle\u201d rhetoric, despite their constant professions of loyalty, is not in line with Corbyn\u2019s central message of seeking \u201cpeace\u201d and \u201cjustice\u201d through community activism. <\/p>\n
Frozen out by Corbyn\u2019s backers, Sultana is pitching to Corbyn\u2019s left, addressing a combative popular mood among broader sections of workers and youth who are breaking away from the Labour Party. Alongside vague left-populist calls for \u201ca politics of hope, a politics of solidarity, a politics of fighting back,\u201d she insists the new party must be class-based, socialist, internationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, anti-fascist, and pro-trans.<\/p>\n
She presents herself as a leader championing grassroots democracy, declaring, \u201cIf we don\u2019t democratise the party, how will we democratise the economy?\u201d <\/p>\n
But Sultana\u2019s fundamental loyalty to Corbyn\u2014and to the labour and trade union bureaucracy which he defends\u2014was exposed in her response to several key questions at the Sheffield meeting.<\/p>\n
Tina Becker, from the \u201cWhy Marx?\u201d group and a member of the Your Party \u201cproto-branch\u201d in Sheffield, asked Sultana about the anti-democratic \u201csortition\u201d method being imposed by Corbyn\u2019s \u201cOrganising Committee\u201d to select delegates to the founding conference. Becker explained it meant \u201cWe can\u2019t put forward motions, we can\u2019t put forward amendments. There will be a lottery system to choose delegates.\u201d She asked Sultana, \u201cShould the regional meetings be able to vote and have amendments? Should we not be the ones who decide how Your Party should be run and not the six MPs, and what are you trying to do to change that?\u201d<\/p>\n