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

Of interest to many here I think.

I have started a thread for the upcoming Labour party conference where things may or may not get spicy though the leadership are trying to clamp down. A lot of Unions are refusing to accept women are actually a thing though.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416076-5416076-sex-and-gender-at-the-labour-party-conference

Yes, she's another Daddy's Little Princess......self confident, secure, assertive, entitled..........Have to say I've been there myself somewhat......but at least came to my senses with the passage of time.

Yes, 'Equality' is a nice concept and rallying cry - until reality interrupts.

The key thing I took from the article interviewing Jeremy is his response to the trans debate. He says trans rights are human rights blah blah but then says with thousands of people there will be a diversity of opinion and when that occurs we will not offer a collective position. I think Sultana is losing this one and trans demands are not going to the top of the manifesto. It is very telling that she was scheduled to appear but pulled out.

It's the Omnicause, innit.

Only it turns out it's a little less "omni" than people like Queers For Palestine realised...

Agree. I noted Corbyn's firm refusal to TWAW.

Boston T party re enactment?

Could you imagine? 'Man overboard', then refusing to be rescued because of the misgendering.

They've launched membership sign up (again)

https://in.yourparty.uk/users/sign_up

"Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of Your Party. As a member, you'll be able to shape the future direction of our party, have a vote at our founding conference and play an active role in bringing real change to our county.
To join, you must be over 16, resident in the UK, and you cannot be a member of another political party."

This from Charlie mansell:

https://nitter.net/charliemansell/status/1970825424424116331#m

"New party update. A new privacy policy has been issued too which vests membership data in third company: "Your Party Ltd" with the 6 MP's as directors. V diff to extra-parliamentary founding of Lab, PC, SNP & Greens between 1900-1972 .."

So that makes 10 different directors with 3 separate sets of data

The six MPs as directors will really piss Zarah off. You notice that when she's speaking it's always in terms of "me and Jeremy", while when Corbyn is speaking he talks about the MPs as a team.

'When I said i was genderfluid, I didnt mean like this'

@Shortshriftandlethal

For me, the issue is that the Left has generally been hijacked by American style Identity politics and the politics of Intersectionality - to the extent that it has pushed out old fashioned economic redistribution as the main ideological framework through which to view the world. A sort of american Marxism but without the economic imperatives.

That's a widespread complaint. So bear in mind that what we're discussing here is the formation of a party (finally!) that DOES view "old fashioned economic distribution as the main ideological framework through with to view the world", whatever might or might no be added on to that in terms of gender and other issues. So that's good, right?

At my local meeting of prospective YP members, there was very much a consensus about focusing on the few issues that really get to the heart of things - particularly nationalisation and wealth tax. The only thing outside of that that was seen as a core issue was Gaza (which is still about economics really, from an internationalist perspective).

Trans wasn't even mentioned, even though I know for a fact some of the people there were TWAW. Plenty of people can see the folly of dying on an unneccessary hill and just want to concentrate on what really matters.

Maybe ZS not so much, but she's only one voice. We'll see.....

Comrade Sultana has now endorsed the Your Party party and membership. Those who signed up last week are being told their details are being seamlessly transferred over to the Corbyn led part

https://x.com/zarahsultana/status/1970910474402398527

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. SHe had won the victory over herself. She loved Big Brother the Sexist Boys Club

It seems silly that they are still using ' your party as a holding name. What are the choices of name?

The issue seems to be that a new generation of self identified Leftists doesn't consider identity politics to be an add on, in the way an older generation does. Younger women, especially, have been brought up to believe that the politics of gender are central. Marx said there could be no true liberation until the plight of women was addressed ( even though he fathered a child by his servant, denied it, and made her use the back door servant's entrance)

Gaza is not about economics. That takes some contortion to make it so. The anti Israel movement has always been about the politics of 'International Socialism' which is rooted in one the earliest forms of the politics of oppression. America and Israel bad oppressors. Palestine and muslims are good, virtuous, victims.

And Sultanah is not just "one voice"....a whole generation of young people like her were enthused and brought into the Labour Party/Momentum by Corbyn.

They won't even be allowed to use it, no matter what Corbyn thinks. The Electoral Commission will think about the possible confusion between "Your Party" as a moniker and "your party" as a phrase in casual conversation, and tell them to think again.

There's a similar thing happening on the right with Ben Habib thinking his Advance UK party can have a tick as its symbol. The EC won't allow that either.

A lot of this was hammered out years ago when the CPB (Morning Star) won the right to style itself "Communist Party" and use the hammer and sickle symbol, while rival micro-groups who also wanted to be the "Communist Party" had to go away and think again about their descriptors.

The issue seems to be that a new generation of self identified Leftists doesn't consider identity politics to be an add on, in the way an older generation does. Younger women, especially, have been brought up to believe that the politics of gender are central. Marx said there could be no true liberation until the plight of women was addressed ( even though he fathered a child by his servant, denied it, and made her use the back door servant's entrance)

You seem to have decided that this party will be dominated by identity politics at the expense of genuine economic redistribution, and are determined that it cannot be otherwise. That seems to be based primarily on the fact that ZS is TWAW, and you don't have a problem ignoring the fact that there are five other leaders involved in its founding, not to mention 800,000 prospective members the vast majority of whom neither you nor I have met.

I'm basing my faith that there's at least a possibility of the contrary on the individuals I know and the local meeting I've attended about it. I'm completely upfront about what a limited sample that is and I don't presume to predict what will happen as it goes nationwide. But even that sample appears to be larger than yours.

You may be right, I guess we'll see. But clearly nothing I say can sway you from the conclusion you have decided in advance. So there we are.

Gaza is not about economics. That takes some contortion to make it so. The anti Israel movement has always been about the politics of 'International Socialism' which is rooted in one the earliest forms of the politics of oppression. America and Israel bad oppressors. Palestine and muslims are good, virtuous, victims.

Gaza is about economics because all imperial oppression is about economics. The Balfour declaration was produced to safeguard Britain's material interests in the middle east, and the modern state of Israel is supported and protected, regardless of whatever level of depraved brutality it visits upon the people it illegaly occupies, to serve the same purpose for the USA.

Believing that people have the right to national self determination and not to be occupied, oppressed and treated like animals by a foreign power has nothing to do with believing they're "good" or "virtuous". It's just to do with believing they're human.

They won't even be allowed to use it, no matter what Corbyn thinks. The Electoral Commission will think about the possible confusion between "Your Party" as a moniker and "your party" as a phrase in casual conversation, and tell them to think again.

Nobody is considering using "Your Party" as the permanent ongoing name. It was made clear from the beginning that that was not what it meant.

I haven't " decided " anything. I'm pointing out the obvious fracture points in a coalition of quite different individuals who have each been brought up with quite different expectations and ideas about what the movement is meant to achieve.

You have said yourself that Gaza will be a central focus ( because it is for Corbyn)... even though that has nothing to do with the economic concerns of the working class living in Britain, unless they happen to be Muslim too ( and that comes down to the politics of identity).

I'm no longer a Labour party member, and I've certainly got no personal interest, beyond the observational, in this new party. The point is, it is not just one voice ( ZS) there are many like her who have been nurtured on identity politics and Intersectionalism. Maybe their perspective might be better reflected by the Greens under Zack Polanski?

Situations change their shape and character when viewed through different lenses. But if this is the lens ( and it is certainly the lens through which Corbyn views matters) that 'Your Party is going to utilise then I think it will alienate more of the general public than it will attract. Though maybe attracting the popular vote is not the main aim or motivation for forming this party?

Paul Mason unimpressed

https://htsf.substack.com/p/jeremy-muddles-through?r=2sidg&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

"But if Murray is against co-operating with “the state”, that implies an attitude to the rule of law that no MP could share, since they are bound by a code that says “no member is above the law”.
In fact, this hostile attitude to “the state” is the tell for something deeper.

This is a party that has no chance of forming a government and does not want to – because then it would have to run not only the ICO but agencies like MI5, the armed forces, the prison system and Border Control (aka “the state”)."

I don't think Corbyn has ever been in any other party than labour has he? He started as a local government worker and union rep then was active and came up through labour. That proviso that members can't be in other political parties (how would they check?) is quite pointed. Ironic really as iirc Alistair Darling was a former revolutionary Marxist (with an alleged revolutionary codename according to ex trot Peter Hitchens!) and peter mandelson and John Reid were ex communists. But he's now stuck with the RCP SWP and assorted feels nihilists who wish to simply destroy Labour as the enemy, as Mason portrays Sultana

Excellent and interesting article. I do think there are factions that would love to destroy Labour and have a Farage government because they dont want to do the boring governing stuff . They want to clap themselves on the back about how progressive they are and how terrible everything is with the ' far right' in power- who includes everyone from Kier Starmer to Tommy Robinson.

"Your Party" has been used as a name by a UK political party before, about 20 years ago.