{"id":484483,"date":"2025-10-09T02:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484483\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T02:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:13:09","slug":"huge-leeds-rally-debates-the-way-forward-for-your-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484483\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge Leeds rally debates the way forward for Your Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tNews<\/a><\/p>\n

Your Party should boost struggle on the streets and in the workplaces and provide opportunities for real debate and discussion<\/p>\n

By Judy Cox<\/b><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDownloading PDF. Please wait…<\/p>\n

Wednesday 08 October 2025<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tIssue <\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\"Photo<\/p>\n

Zarah Sultana addresses the Leeds rally<\/p>\n

A huge Your Party rally took place in Leeds on Wednesday. Over 650 tickets were sold for the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zarah Sultana<\/a> got a standing ovation when she told the rally, \u201cI understand that people are feeling frustrated. But the 800,000 people who were interested in Your Party have not gone away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes are too high. Fascism is growling at the door, and if an election was held today, Nigel Farage would be prime minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn towns and cities across the country people are saying the same thing\u2014there is no other choice. We have to make this work. The stakes are too high to fail.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to challenge the far right in the streets and at the ballot box. We need an anti-fascist, anti-Nazi league for the 21st century. The unions need to step up\u2014we don\u2019t need union logos on a leaflet\u2014we need coaches and people on the streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be socialists. We are not tweaking here and there\u2014we want a fundamental transformation of society which puts wealth in the hands of the workers who produce it. We need to embrace class war and it\u2019s time we won.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we need to be an anti-Zionist party, a party that stands for a free Palestine. We demand wages not weapons\u2014trans rights are human rights and we will defend them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salma Yaqoob, a former Respect Party councillor, referred to the recent arguments in Your Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There has been a debate about whether landlords are welcome in the party. One of the independent MPs in the party, Shockat Adam, has said the new party shouldn\u2019t be \u201canti-wealth\u201d or \u201calienate landlords\u201d<\/a> with class politics. But Sultana has tabled a motion in parliament calling for MPs to be barred from being landlords.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Salma said at the rally, \u201cAny meaningful democracy will not be neat\u2014it will be messy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I am against austerity and imperialist war. But we need a party that is unified and welcoming. Maybe we do need small shopkeepers, small landlords. We know who the real enemies are.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got to be a party that belongs to all of us.<\/p>\n

She also referred to Tory shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick\u2019s recent comments about parts of Birmingham being like \u201cghettoes\u201d. She said, \u201cI\u2019m from Birmingham, and we\u2019re proud of our multi-racial communities. What Jenrick should be ashamed of is the fact that 130,000 kids go to sleep hungry because of the Tory\u2019s policies.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jake Williams left the Labour Party and is now an independent councillor in Wakefield,\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was loudly cheered when he said, \u201cThere are issues that need to be resolved\u2014like landlords. How can landlords represent the whole of society? We don\u2019t want landlords or corporate lobbyists\u2014we need a party for ordinary, working people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis Nielsen, the anti-fascist officer from Stand up to Racism, told the rally, \u201cWe are going to organise to stop Farage. We have a far right party on 30 percent in the polls, the biggest party in Britain, led by Tommy Robinson, who has been invited to Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes have never been higher. We cannot afford to mess this up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rows we have seen on social media and elsewhere have to stop. Solidarity with Zarah for the way she had been treated, but the project of unity has to begin. If Jeremy and Zarah put out videos, saying what we stand for and what we can do, we can get this party back on the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that there has been too much debate\u2014There hasn\u2019t been enough democracy, assemblies organising\u2014we want more democracy and more debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan has just started studying at Leeds University. Ryan told Socialist Worker, \u201cI really wanted to find out what Zarah has to say and to meet like minded people. I want to see a party that can attract people away from the far right and a party that stands up for Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janet joined the rally from Bradford. She told Socialist Worker, \u201cI want to know what the party\u2019s policies will be, what they stand for, and I want to get involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to vote Labour, now I vote independent, but we need a national party that can challenge big parties like Labour. I want to see a party that is anti-war, anti-nuclear and for economic equality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catherine told Socialist Worker, \u201cWhen Your Party was announced, I was so inspired and excited. At last, someone was going to stand up and say the right things and 800,000 signed up as interested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen there was the in-fighting and it took the wind out of my sails a bit. A lot of people in my friendship group will be going to the Greens if Your Party doesn\u2019t get its act together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I am hopeful it can. There is still lots of enthusiasm out there for a real alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ishtiaq<\/a>, an independent councillor from Bradford, told Socialist Worker, \u201cThere is lots of enthusiasm for Your Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of people wanting to get involved\u2014so we want to know how they do that, how they get involved and shape the party\u2019s policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The size of the rally shows that there is still enthusiasm for Your Party even if the row at the top has set things back. It should be a party that boosts struggle on the streets<\/a> and in the workplaces and where there are opportunities for real debate about the way forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Your Party should boost struggle on the streets and in the workplaces and provide opportunities for real…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,6333,1860,1814,386,16,15,152347],"class_list":{"0":"post-484483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-housing","12":"tag-leeds","13":"tag-palestine","14":"tag-reform-uk","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-your-party"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115341794088574476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}