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

Indeed and there is a big class component. Like it or not working class Brits are angry.

Will that be the same working class Brits who voted for Thatcher to sell off their council houses, thus setting in motion the very housing crisis their children are suffering now? Or the ones that voted for Johnson to "Get Brexit Done" directly contributing to the current cost of living crisis for no discernable benefit? Or the ones that positively guffawed at the idea of voting Labour in 2019 when they proposed renationalisation of key public services, massive reinvigoration of social housing etc. etc. - basically everything needed to reverse the inequality spiral - funded by honest and unashamed reweighting of the tax burden towards corporations and the richest, because Corbyn once talked to the IRA and didn't sing the national anthem loud enough?

Gosh yes, I can see how badly "the left" have treated them.

As opposed to what's happening now?

Are you sure you're not really asking 'if Reform are elected and my standard of living falls, what happens to me?"

Yes, that's not what I'm asking.

Maybe the reason why people are willing to risk voting for reform is that they know they haven't anything to lose.

Except that's bullshit, except maybe for a completely homeless and literally starving person. Anyone who can look at the standard of living of working and lower middle class people in the UK, in the context of the world as a whole, and not realise there is a whole gaping chasm still left to fall into, is beyond reason.

And there are plenty of people far better off than I am supporting Reform.

What's happening now is bad, right?

So read what I actually posted. If you think what's happening now is bad, and if people are reacting to it with anger and violence and support for overt racism - what happens when it gets EVEN WORSE.

TBH all I can see is a real time demonstration of the point some of us have been making about the way "the left" treat working class voters...

The working class are not a hive mind. What you appear to be saying is "they deserve all they get, the thick peasants. Let's just carry on as we are because we re cleverer and fuck 'em, bunch of useless chavs." Problem is if the left carry on as it is with the sneering, we will continue to get exactly what we have been getting. More Farage. Do you actually want that? What would you like to see happen instead? Does it involve you 'educating' the thick peasants into your way of thinking or something more constructive?

And while I don't disagree with your points on the council housing and Brexit, I think you need to ask WHY it was that so many working class people voted for those who did these things. Why didn't they feel the alternatives they were being offered at the time were better?

Oh my god, that thread. All the old names are coming out of the woodwork - Momentum, Militant, SWP... Let the purity spiral struggle sessions commence!

There's nothing bad that couldn't be worse , my mother used to say. For example having to pay for medical treatment instead of complaining about it. Reform away though......🙄

OMG I thought I'd come up with that motivational quote all by myself!

Well yes, that's who many of the 'working class' are, like it or not. If you claim to be a party of the 'working class' then you need to address the concerns of people who did all of those things. Otherwise, you aren't a party of the working class. They are not some sacred group. They are ill defined and hardly exist in the traditional sense anymore (are people who don't work and have never worked 'working class'?) If the Left doesn't want to represent them, then just say so and work in the interests of people they want to.

You can hate the working class all you like, as very well demonstrated on this thread, but you still need their votes.

If I'm cynical about the current year UK left, it's because I actually know lots of these pillocks.

(Trump voice)

We don't make socialism any more. We used to make great socialism, I mean really tremendous socialism, maybe the best socialism in the world, I haven't looked into it but many people say so. China and Vietnam make socialism now, but it isn't very good socialism and it falls apart after you've been using it for a week. There used to be a mass working class movement in this country that Labour politics was based on, but Labour also had smart guys like GDH Cole and Denis Healey and Peter Shore. And even the far left could produce serious work like Mike Kidron's Western Capitalism Since The War. But those days are gone, my friends, long gone. The left these days, they aren't sending their best. They're sending ideological hacks, Stalinists, antisemites, queer theorists, idiots. And some, I assume, are good people.

😂

LOL Just wait until they hear George Galloway doesn't believe TWAW either! What are they on about?

What @RainbowBagels said. If you want the majority of people in the country to vote for you, you have to start fucking listening and engaging and stop making all these patronising, high handed proclamations. Or get ready your told you sos for the Farage government. Up to you.

Someone said on twitter that the left are promoting for loyalty, not ability, and not for radical thinking.

I'm not being funny but I suspect there's an element of the left whose ideal Labour election campaign would be a rerun of the Yes To AV campaign, which really succeeded in winning over the broad masses by foregrounding Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard patting each other on the back about being on the right side of history.

For good measure, let's get Emily Thornberry to drive around Essex passing comment on white van men.

(Little remembered fact from the Yes To AV campaign - some people suggested it was a mistake to aim all their propaganda at a left-leaning audience impressed by Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard. Maybe find a frontman who could speak to right-leaning audiences? As it happens, Nigel Farage was eager to help, but they refused to use him.)

There used to be a mass working class movement in this country that Labour politics was based on, but Labour also had smart guys like GDH Cole and Denis Healey and Peter Shore.

I stan Dennis Healey

And did the country say yay to AV? No. Just like it did say yes to Brexit, despite a similar luvvy focussed campaign against it.

And look where that got a Sturgeon-led SNP.

At this point Im wondering whether a devolved Scottish parliament will survive a Reform government.

George knows which side his bread is buttered on. He is indefatigable in that sense 😉

I think Farage would be quite happy without Scotland being in the UK at all.

Hmm. I think he may like somewhere to keep all the warheads, and get all the oil and gas from, though.

😆 😆. One of her perennial faves. Along with " I want doesn't get" .

Yes, agree. I doubt he is in favour of breaking up the Union.