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

I love living in a state that has Proportional representation. It is a necessary condition for a functioning democracy in the 21st century. Although it's not a magic bullet.

Having said that I've no idea how AV works never mind trying to explain it's intricacies to anyone else . A total mess with some dodgy opaque list system I'd be very wary of. Besides not being especially proportional. No wonder it was rejected. If you don't know vote No I guess . Starmer should trial PR Single Transferable Vote in local elections so people get the hang of it. They'll never go back to
giving someone a landslide on 34% of the vote I bet !
But Captain Doomed will keep right on heading towards the iceberg 🧊.

Our PR system in Scotland hath delivered us Maggie Chapman. Be warned!

I don't believe in the hive mind either. I was just challenging the idea that the plight of the working class as a whole all comes down to them being innocent victims of "the left". The country as a whole has moved steadily further towards neoliberalism and atomised individualism over the last half century, the working class along with everybody else. The WC do of course have the right to vote for privatisation, austerity, Brexit and any other brainchild of the right that they think will secure their interests. What you don't get to do, if you want to come across as having half a functioning brain in your head, is then place the blame on the party and policies you DIDN'T vote for when it all goes tits up. Enough of the WC left Labour and got behind Thatcher in the 80s to destroy Labour's chance of election and establish neoliberalism - and that was when Labour was VERY left. The only way Labour could then return to power was by swinging to the right under Blair - but that of course meant they "betrayed" the working class (who wouldn't vote for them otherwise). They were then so annoyed by Labour moving to the right that they had to vote for a party further to the right and austerity, which completely fucked them, and apparently was again Labour's fault. So Labour got a proper left wing leader and proper left wing policies again under Corbyn - and of course they couldn't vote for THAT! How could Labour be so tone deaf, as to not realise that's not what the WC want!

So now we have another watered down centrist "Labour" government, doing nothing for redistribution, investment or opportunity, nothing for traditional Labour values whatsoever. And the working class hate them and blame the left, for betraying them and not offering the real thing.

Honestly, do you not see how full of shit people are? You can either embrace a left wing direction and give it a proper go, or not. If you do, then you can hold it to account. If you don't, then you can't hold it to account for the outcomes created by its opposite.

As for the "sneering" - that's a common objection on this board as elsewhere. I'm sorry if my tone in that last post was a bit sarcastic, I've generally tried to avoid that in favour of respectful debate.

But I would also point out that the sneering is not at all one way. I've read posters on here say the most vile, frankly violent things about how they want to hurt the terrible Liberal Metropolitan Elite that are apparently responsible for all their problems. Yet the moment one points out, however objectively and responsibly, that a working class analysis of the impact of immigration or the intentions of someone like Johnson or Farage is likely to be incorrect, one becomes the big bad bogeyman for not just accepting that if someone's working class it must mean they're right about everything.

But you're basically saying that if the working class decides to be right wing, the left needs to be right wing too to represent them. Which doesn't make any sense.

I have no problem with some working class people deciding their interests lie with the right instead, and simply accepting that my politics doesn't represent those individuals. What I resent is my politics then taking the blame for the repeated failure of those individuals' choices to deliver on their promises.

Russia has plenty of gas.

You seem to be labouring (no pun intended) that making the observation that Reform are polling far higher than any other party means that people are supportive of them. Is that the case?

No. Im saying the Left needs to understand the people they claim to want to represent, why they might have wanted to buy their own houses, why they have concerns about immigration etc instead of hectoring them about their wrong choices and wrong opinions and give people an alternative to the Right. Its like that cartoon of Labour canvassing by saying ' vote for me you bigot!
If people still dont want that then fine. It's the patronising fetishisation of the working class ( and actually Black and Brown people) that they dont know what's good for them and need the educated intelligentsia to tell them.
Other parties havent got this. They say 'this is what we are going to do' and let people make their own minds up, good or bad, not patronising them or telling them whats good for them. Many of the ' working class' are wealthy- people who work in the trades, have their own businesses, train drivers, trade union bosses etc earn more than many university educated middle class professionals working in the public sector. Many who bought those council houses are sitting on houses worth hundreds of thousands more than the peanuts they paid for them (my parents included). Their children weren't going to Europe on Erasmus and they didn't have Spanish au pairs. We all benefitted from being in the EU and it is the fault of the Right that they inflicted that shitshow on us but they inflicted it on the Middle classes in the main. Jeremy Corbyn is a longstanding Brexiteer and did sweet FA to prevent Brexit because he didnt want to.

And the fun continues:

Jeremy Corbyn backs aide as spat with Zarah Sultana worsens

The former Labour leader defended Karie Murphy, his former chief of staff, after a spiralling argument between factions in the new left-wing ‘Your Party’

Now Corbyn has used the annual conference of his Peace and Justice Project — the group he created to defend his legacy after resigning as Labour leader — to defend Murphy.

He declared: “She has had an awful lot of stick and criticism this week. I just want to say this. I’ve known Karie Murphy for many, many years and I’m appalled when people attack an individual like her.”

He continued: “She’d walk on burning coals for a cause that she believes in and I want to say thank you Karie.”

The intervention is unusual for Corbyn, who is famously confrontation-averse and reluctant to name individual members of staff publicly. It marks the latest escalation of hostilities between two politicians who differ sharply stylistically and increasingly on questions of political strategy and policy.

Jeremy Corbyn backs aide as spat with Zarah Sultana worsens

Or, in the case of Alex Sobel, declaring that people who know what a woman is, shouldn't vote for him.

Didn't Jo Swinson say that too? Worked out well for her too!

I know "populism" is often used as a boo-word on FWR, but in a democracy you need a certain amount of populism - in the form of giving the voters what they want, or at least meeting them halfway - for the system to work.

Too many politicians think they're philosopher kings in the style of Marcus Aurelius. That's not what we pay them for. They're hot dog vendors. Maybe Nigel's greatest strength is that he realises he's a hot dog vendor.

Imagine you are Faisal's Hot Dogs. You need some help at the weekend, so you hire Alex Sobel MP.

Faisal: Ok Alex, the hot dog is cooked, now you put it in the bun. The ketchup, mustard and fried onions are here...

Sobel: That customer looks like a terf, I'm not serving her

In that situation, Faisal is going to let Alex go pretty quickly. Even if he's only aiming it at one customer, all the other customers will hear it and probably tell their friends about Alex's unprofessional behaviour.

I'm not a fan of Morgan McSweeney, but he might be the most intelligent person in Labour right now, because he understands that he's a hot dog vendor, and that Labour has to appeal to the median voter. This instantly gives him an advantage over dimwit MPs who think Labour's job is to appeal to Nish Kumar.

Sultana to sue for defamation...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4l3elkzwjo

Andrew Murray (who I would trust to have an inside track) gives his view.

Meanwhile, the open letter calling for a member-led party sidelining the MPs continues to draw signatures from movement stalwarts including "Donald Trump" and "Stephen Yaxley Lennon".

Your Party, their crisis, our hopes dashed? | Morning Star

"5 men, 4 of them not particularly socialist'
Well why have they decided this was a socialist party then? The 'socialists' are outnumbered by Muslim Independents ( who actually sound more traditional Labour rather than Socialist, so why did they say they were a Left wing party when all they had in common was Gaza not socialism? On top of that there is hardly a cigarette paper between them and the Greens. Whats the difference? It was so obvious this was going to fall apart.

I don't really agree with Murray, who seems to share the common unconscious view on the UK left that the white lefties are the brains of the operation, and the Muslims are NPCs who are there to follow the far left's lead.

And there are other things he's not saying. Corbyn's close associates are fiercely protective of him, understandably but not always in his best interests. And Sultana is basically incapable of working as part of a team. I know Murray has to be diplomatic, but a bit more candour would be helpful.

I agree with you.
Re Corbyn. Why has he become such a talisman? Why does he need protecting? Just cut him loose. Hes like the Nigel Farage of the Left. Why is there such a cult of personality around him? He was a terrible Labour leader, achieved precisely nothing as an MP apart from being a decent constituency MP like many others, he's just a silly, vain stubborn old man. Is there really no one else?

Is there really no one else?

Short answer, no, I don't think there is. There was John McDonnell, but he put himself out of play ages ago.

McDonnell is also roughly the same age as Corbyn, and has a dodgy heart. I rather like McDonnell, he's smart and tough and more pragmatic than people think. But I can't see him becoming a popular figurehead.

I'm still not sure about how Corbyn became a popular figurehead. The people who've made a talisman out of Corbyn, some of them writing poetry about him... I don't get that. I've met Corbyn twice, once he was charming and once he was grumpy. I gather that's pretty standard. I've never felt magnetic charisma from him. Maybe he's just the unlikely vessel for other people's dreams.

From what my contacts in Reform tell me, they know there's a problem of it being a Farage personality cult and Farage himself accepts that, so they're consciously trying to build a team. The buzz from conference - well, it's the Nigel show and everyone wants to hear him, but there was also talk about how good Tice's speech was, and Sarah Pochin's speech, and Zia Yusuf's speech. Danny Kruger defecting is significant because he's a substantial figure in his own right and he provides a permission structure for others (Miriam Cates, maybe?) to come over. So they see the problem of being a one man band and are trying to rectify that. I don't know if they'll succeed.

I wish the left could look at the right and draw some lessons from it. Instead their best idea is to have Corbyn (who will be 80 at the next election) as their figurehead and Little Miss Can't Be Wrong as his heir apparent. This is not serious.

It's getting serious. Ken Loach and Yanis Varoufakis have written a concerned letter to the guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/21/historic-opportunity-british-left-thrown-away-your-party-row

"Hang on in there comrades!"

It wouldn't be a leftist bunfight if Ken Loach didn't turn up and have a senior moment.

'Hang on in there, (peers very closely) ........ ladies?'

Blimey if they are mystified as to why this has happened then really they haven't been paying attention the last million times the British Left has imploded into infighting- about every decade or so. Granted, none of them had previously tried co opting in some religious conservatives and trying to make two groups who were diametrically opposed on everything except one single issue into a coherent party when usually a tiny difference of opinion is enough to shatter them into a million pieces, but still. Who knew that wouldn't work!

“we urge you to grasp that this is not about you”…Good luck with that!

Regarding earlier posts about how migration/immigration issues are just a front for a deeper disatisfaction and distrust amongst those drifting towards Reform...I suggest that for many Covid and the lockdown, and the moralising and authoritarianism around vccines and the closure of schools radicalised many people; especially those of a more political bent in working class communities.

Of course, the Tories inplemented lockdown, even though Boris only did so reluctantly, but it was Labour and the Left which were generally the biggest moralisers: those calling for school closures, and for stricter, longer lockdowns.

Lots of people rebelled and then started getting sucked into conspiracies around 5G and 'three minute cities' which were all predicated on individual liberty and freedom and not being controlled by big state authoritarianism. I saw plenty of this where I live, and could hear the talk 'on the streets and in the hairdressers and so on.

I think one reason immigration is such a lightning rod is that, for 20 years at least, it's been a prime example of politicians saying one thing to get into power and then doing the opposite.

In the present moment, it's the sequence of Covid lockdowns undermining trust in the authorities, immediately followed by the Boriswave. Even if it made economic sense to ramp up immigration to a million a year to power the Deliveroo economy, it was a very visible case of the government lying to the voters. And the Starmer government is still lying to the voters.

It might be less toxic if politicians treated the voters like adults and had serious and honest conversations about the level and type of immigration we need. The nearest we got to that was in 2019 when Dom Cummings and Lee Cain bullied Boris into promising an Australian points system based around high-skill high-wage immigration - but Boris never believed in what he was promising and went straight back to immigration for cheap labour as soon as Dom and Lee had been ousted.