Your Corbyn/Sultana Party - Discussion thread

[fromorbit]

The new left party is going to have significant implications for gender and sex discussions on the left in the UK and in wider political debate as well. Lets talk about it.

Four of its prospective MPs are Gaza independents whose votes and comments in the Commons indicate a social conservative background . One of them Adnan Hussain has already got into a row on X with prospective members over his social conservatism.

The hilarious breakdown of the Islamo-left alliance
The progressive left has suddenly noticed that most British Muslims are not exactly woke.
This uneasy marriage got a reality check last week when a Green Party councillor and practising Muslim, Mothin Ali, appeared reluctant to sign a set of ‘pledges’ on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ Greens, Feminist Greens and other similar groups. The MP for Blackburn, ‘Gaza Independent’ Adnan Hussain, then waded into the debate. ‘It’s no secret that Muslims tend to be socially conservative’, Hussain said. ‘Is there a space on the left to create a broad enough church to allow Muslims an authentic space, just as it does other minority groups?’
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/04/the-hilarious-breakdown-of-the-islamo-left-alliance/

The initial statement for Your Party focuses on poverty, fighting the system and Gaza, but makes no mention of progressive social issues, . This already signals something significant.
https://www.yourparty.uk/statement

Zarah Sultana on the other hand has already signaled out trans rights as a key principal in a recent interview which has received push back from others. Discussion here:

The Elephant in the Room for Zara Sultana’s “Your Party”
https://labourheartlands.com/the-elephant-in-the-room/
But here’s the rub. Sultana also pledged to “resolutely” advocate for a pro-trans socialist programme. She insists these discussions must happen openly and democratically.

That sounds fine in theory. In practice, the left has already shown itself utterly incapable of having this conversation without collapsing into authoritarian cancel culture.

Can the Left Have an Honest Trans Debate Without Cancelling Women?

For years, women who raise legitimate questions about the impact of gender self-ID on female-only spaces, or about the safeguarding implications highlighted by the Cass Review, have been branded as bigots and driven out of the movement. “Demonising trans people” is often code for “asking difficult but necessary questions.” If Your Party repeats this mistake, it will bleed support from countless socialist women before it even begins.

The truth is, many women will not get involved in this project precisely because of the Corbyn–Sultana line on trans issues. Others may hope the problem quietly goes away. It won’t. Nor is this a side issue: women’s rights are not negotiable add-ons to socialism; they are foundational. To ignore them is to build on sand.

TAs online and who are planning to join are already girding up for war, it is looking messy.

I can see a number of factions inside the new party who are going to make things complicated:

Muslim social conservatives - as mentioned they will be a major part of the party's voting bloc.

Old school Marxists who regard gender ideology as neo liberal capitalist identity politics and a distraction from class.

Realists who will see gender stuff as a marginal issue which needs to be sidelined because it is so toxic and unpopular with the general public.

Last but certainly not least actual left wing feminists who see through gender nonsense and are not going to be quiet about it !!

I expect fireworks over gender at the the party's initial conference supposedly to be held in November. TAs will attempt to make genderism a key principal of the party and will face resistance. Whether it happens or not it will be another nail in the TAs attempt to pretend the left inherently back neoliberal capitalist ideas like genderism. The big terfy mother elephant is going to be at the conference because women keep doing awkward things like existing and saying things.

Corbyn's position is going to be a focus in this because for all his occasional signalling on trans issues like stating pronouns and saying mantras it is not a core issue for him, and moreover he doesn't believe in it narrowly . His circles have long contained gender critical people who he has refused to cancel, because Corbyn for all his faults believes in open debate. So I think this could be a wedge issue between those around Sultana and Corbyn. There are already signs of disagreements between them over other issues like antisemitism:
Sultana: Corbyn 'capitulated' on antisemitism definition
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c79lr40rqelo

Yes, the same Corbyn. I think the two are entirely consistent. He doesn't really give a shit about women, a bit of feminism is part of the package, nothing more and I think @fromorbit is right trans issues aren't core for him. I don't think he actually is much interested in debate though, tbh.

Womanface, innit?

I did say it was at one of the very first anti Israel demonstrations ( back in early 2024), not long after October 7th when Israel declared war on Hamas.

Is it? I'm just seeing a man with long hair. if you could see the feet/legs, it's give more of a clue.

I think by the next general election there will be a dedicated Islam-interest party. I expect they will get a good number of seats - after all they nearly unseated several MPs last time. With under-18s being able to vote that will swell the electorate in their favour in many areas.

This will leave Your Party a bit sunk except in areas where the Greens dominate so they’ll be competing for the same voters.

I think Reform/Con will badly split the vote, favouring the LibDems.

Parliament may be very fractured and full of coalitions and fragile alliances.

Corbyn won more votes in each of the elections he was Labour leader, than any other.

I don't understand this.
In 2017
Labour, led by Corbyn got 12, 877, 000 votes.
Tories got 13, 636, 000 (both numbers rounded)

He was also the first opposition leader for over 30 years to lose a by by-election to an incumbent government.

In 2019
Labour got 10, 269,000
Tories got 13, 966, 000

At the moment Your Party is trying to get the Gaza independent MPs into the new party. If they fail to do this [with debates over being gender being one issue likely to divide them] and they do their own thing, then I think that will hamper both them and Your party and both of them will be in competition with the Greens.

The result may benefit the Lib Dems or Labour.

I agree. He reminds me if that male comedian who also has the most beautiful long auburn hair.

Why do we have MPs for Gaza in the UK parliament? Why does Palestine have such a hold on UK politics? Actually sick of hearing about it. A waste of resources and energy.

I agree. What's happening in the Middle East is awful. I want UK MPs to concentrate on the UK. I don't think that's unreasonable considering the UK tax payer is paying them to run the UK.

Pollsters have concluded that statistically all of Labour's bump in its vote in 2017 can be explained by Remainers flocking to Labour at a time when the Lib Dems were largely discredited. There were other factors, like the Tories running an incredibly inept campaign. Corbyn's effect was probably neutral since nobody expected him to come close to winning.

Somehow, pundits like Owen Jones have turned this into a mythology of Corbyn being an enormously popular leader who would have won if Labour hadn't stabbed him in the back.

They never mention the polling from 2019 that was giving Corbyn approval ratings in the region of -60%, a low for a party leader that had never been seen before and would only briefly be broken by Liz Truss. Starmer may be approaching those kind of ratings, but he hasn't quite got there yet.

What's clear is that there is a smallish but significant (let's say 10%) slice of the electorate that really likes Corbyn. I suspect it's heavily concentrated in university constituencies and will cause as big a problem for the Greens as for Labour.

Now the electorate is currently pretty volatile, and these things can change very quickly - it used to be conventional wisdom among pollsters that Farage had a ceiling of about 15% and was massively offputting to everyone else - but that will depend on things Corbyn/Sultana objectively can't control (economic trends etc) as well as things they should be able to control but the left has chronic problems with (factional infighting, loony candidates, promising voters the moon on a stick)

Embrace the Iranian model of transing the gay away and the Afghan model of allowing some women limited freedoms as long as they resign from the category of woman. Tell the green wing of the party this is social conservatism; tell the red wing it is progress. Both wings will engage in cognitive dissonance in order to form a politically expedient alliance.

I actually agree with the poster upthread who said the Gaza MPs aren't going to need Corbyn for much longer. He might seem rather a quaint figure in the future.

Yeah, I don't know why people think trans ideology and radical Islamism are enemies. Iran and Pakistan are fully on board with the gay man to pretend woman pipeline. And if, like Algeria and Iran, they can fill their female sports teams with medal winners of the most marginalised variety, so much the better.

Did he for sure? I was not there this year, i am going next year, i can galvanise my miners wife crew, i know where he stays and where we go after is the same place as him. And i have spoke to him before.

I have said on another thread that i will see to it that LWS show up will be protected from unison nut wits by us.

I need to do some networking re all of this but i fully intend to push women's rights, not that this will take much fucking effort. As you know men down t pit know what sex they are.

The fact that we have “Gaza MPs” in British parliament is quite frankly fucking terrifying.

Ross Noble?

In what way is it telling.

As Shortshrift suggests, surely it's the juxtaposition of the long haired bloke in the photo and the Muslim woman to his left - in particular the look she's giving him. Keeping the two very disparate groups they represent in one party will not prove easy.

Though I have to say, for a party that's not even established yet, Sultana having a go at Corbyn for being too soft on the Jews is... quite a bold move.
Sultana: Corbyn 'capitulated' on antisemitism definition

Agree. Islamic countries are fine with trans people. They love transing people because it's used as gay conversion therapy. Neither group care much for women or their rights either. Gay people are really the only conflict group between the two. Shame they've been so completely thrown under the bus by everyone.

I campaigned, in a safe Labour seat, for Labour in the 2019 election and every day we were issued with a list of more special offers designed to tempt voters to vote for him. Frankly people, even people who had a history of voting Labour, just stood on their doorsteps and laughed at us trying to sell Corbyn's Labour. Working class people had very little time for him because he was seen to be so concerned with Venezuela and international stuff. He was adored by a handful of very middle class people — students, university lecturers and council management — living in naice areas and with decent cars on their drives.

He's also very popular with one woman I know. When politics are discussed she always reverts to her hatred of Margaret Thatcher. I've known her long enough to know that back in the 80s she put up something like £11k so that her mum could buy the family council house in Hackney. Even in those days it was a ridiculously low price for a 3-bedroom house in London. The mother then gave my acquaintance the house, to avoid IHT when she died, which she did a decade or so later. My acquaintance lived in the house for a few years and borrowed money against it (by now Hackney was gentrifying and prices had gone through the roof) to buy several properties in places like Shoreditch and Hoxton and Stratford on a BTL basis. She woman now lives in a beautiful period house in Chiswick. She sold the rest of her property portfolio off at the height of the 2022-3 property boom. She boasts about how little capital gains tax she managed to get away with.

She seems utterly oblivious to the fact that it was Maggie Thatcher and the Tories who have helped her every step of the way to make money. She's done everything she can, despite being a good socialist, to avoid paying tax. Quite what she expects to happen if Corbyn gets in I don't know. It doesn't seem to have occurred to her that it's people like her, in properties worth £2+million and with more millions invested, who'll be taxed more.

and there is another lesson from Iran. It is a country where Socialists learned the hard way what happens when you cozy up to socially conservative Muslims. Left wing groups helped back Khomeini before the Iranian revolution as thought they they could use his popularity to further their cause. It proved to be the other way round and thousands of Socialists and union leaders were rounded up and killed.

WTH? 😂
No, Alistair Beckett.

Another similarity with Respect is that it is an absolutely silly name

I know it only temporary but 'Your Party' is just embarrassing

Yes. It's incredible how naive they are, and also patronising that they think if only they can stop them being oppressed by capitalism and Western Imperialism they will forget all about their silly religion and turn their country into a Socialist utopia. They underestimate these people ( probably because even though they would declare themselves anti racist they think they are not as clever as them) and then they get played every time.

That's true re: iran but don't the trans women there, unlike here have to have their penis removed through surgery?

I can't see that appealing to the average TRA in the UK where about 95% have no surgery instead basing their identity on just a feeling.