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 course, the 'working class' in countries such as China and India are now enjoying what they consider to be 'higher living standards' which are predicated on consumerism and the purchase of cars etc. Try getting China or India to dial back on that because Westerners have decided it is not good for the planet.

So if you're (i.e. I'm) convinced by Picketty's number crunching what do you do?
I'm not being snarky, I don't know how to generate political will for a regulated market.
Or do I just buy up on baked beans and hope the next crash, doesn't?

I think the sort of doom loop, degeneration and general hopelessness that is caused by unemployment and de-industrialisation is lauded by certain strands of the Left, because it means the revolution is nearing.

I live in Liverpool, which as most people know has a fairly recent history of militant left politics ( as well as having been 'the second city' of Britain's empire and contributing more to the exchequer than London, at one point). This came about as a result of general decline over decades and the feeling that the interests of the working class were not being served by Tory, or by any mainstream political party, or by austerity.

Derek Hatton and his cronies dismantled the city's fabulous botanical collection and destroyed the greenhouses ( far too bourgeois) leaving the gardeners and plantsmen heartbroken that their years of loving dedication had been so swiftly dismantled; they likewise held a big car boot sale of the furniture and contents of Croxteth Hall ( the former home of the Earls of Sefton) for similar reasons......years later the city council had to replace the furniture in order to open the house up to the public.

"Oh, but they did build council houses and leisure centres for 'the people'...." the people who no longer had jobs and not much hope of getting one.....as both de-industrialisation and bad reputation prevented new business from being seeded or from growing. For decades the city was at rock bottom......but did this impact upon the view of the militants? Only so far as it consolidated the foundational beliefs that the glorious socialist economy was just around the next corner and that the city was going to make of itself an island of 'solidarity' in the face of heartless capitalism and its Labour party 'sell outs'.

You still get people in the city trying to block proposals for new hotels or for almost any sort of new development because they see it only through the lens of the capitalist class making money off the poor and disenfranchised. They seem to think the city can run and sustain itself on community launderettes, bakeries and vegetable patches.

In Glasgow recently there have been similar wreckers who are agitating for 'the people', while succeeding largely in shutting down businesses, and compelling the Centre for Contemporary Arts to issue a hostage statement. They are explicitly anti business, of any type, which is such a doolally stance I don't even know how they manage to get out of bed in the morning.

Dispute with workers led to the cafe shutting, losing jobs for several:

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23471226.glasgows-cca-announces-saramago-close-amid-bitter-union-dispute/

Struggle session over Palestinian issues led to hostage statement:

https://news.stv.tv/west-central/glasgow-cca-apologises-for-handling-of-pro-palestinian-protests-after-two-month-closure

Looking at polling trends, Labour doesn't have many safe seats left outside of inner London and Liverpool (and I think they might be shocked at how many working class scousers are considering voting Reform)

But the old hegemony is crumbling in the East End. Tower Hamlets is its own thing of course, but Newham should be reliable - it's Keir Hardie territory, it's been Labour run for over 100 years, often Labour have held every single seat on the council.

But eventually even Newham voters will scratch their heads and ask what 100 years of Labour rule has done for them. And that's when you get independent challenges.

The interesting thing about the Newham Independents is that people think they're left wing because they're Muslim-led and pro-Palestine, but really they're developing into a big tent party for everyone in the borough who's fed up with Labour. There's no indication that they're ideologically socialist.

The collapse of the two gas giants is throwing up all sorts of challenges that I don't think either Corbyn or Sultana understand - they're still fighting the last war.

Lewis Baston: Trouble for Newham Labour with by-election loss

The first thing Aspire did when they got elected was shut down all the low traffic neighbourhood stuff.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9npnyj9rko

I can't imagine Tories ever getting elected in the East End, and Reform would struggle too, but maybe the wave of the future is Muslim politicians with a low-tax pro-business pro-motorist agenda.

And Labour have just appointed Shabana Mahmood, who openly says she wants to castrate nonces, as Home Secretary.

I don't think this is what the white left imagined would be the result of British Muslims getting into politics.

It's redistribution that Picketty argues his numbers show the market needs, not just regulation.
I'm arguing with myself now so better pop out and yell at some clouds next.

I think the sort of doom loop, degeneration and general hopelessness that is caused by unemployment and de-industrialisation is lauded by certain strands of the Left, because it means the revolution is nearing.
I think the worst thing about this and the cultural vandalism @ArabellaSaurus and @Shortshriftandlethal spoke about is that the Leftists dont see the value in it because often they have had the money, education and resources to access these things elsewhere. So they'll shut down a free art gallery and free gardens but they dont see downside because they already saw them in Paris/ Amsterdam/ at school/ their parents took them. Apparently Black scholarship students in US Universities just shrugged their shoulders at the Palestine protests because to them it was just more White folk stopping Black people accessing education.

And all the time, the super-rich keep getting richer and richer. Regardless of 'crises' and 'difficult economic times'. And Elon Musk laughs at us all.

Yes, there is a lot of dissent amongst 'working class' populations in Liverpool, who are leaning towards Reform ( certainly in outer boroughs) butI don't think the main issue is illegal migration or Brexit type stuff...it's more that a lot of people became quite radicalised during covid and the lockdown and rejected the moralising self righteousness coming out of Labour, and have become distrustful of authority and tired of government pronouncements and promises.

.Plus Liverpool city council has recently under-gone three years of government over-sight due to a failing, corrupt council - that had been populated by lazy left demagogues and those with anti business/anti profit type sentiments who blocked everything. It was all bread and circuses. Giant puppets and light shows.

Labour has never done anything for Liverpool - nationally or locally...and now the city is saddled with a useless metro mayor as well who hides in the shadows of Andy Burnham, and still gets nothing.

Jeremy Corbyn loves to visit though and usually attracts quite a crowd.

There have always been plenty of independent candidates though of Left wing varieties.

People like Trump, Musk and Farage dont care about the poor or anyone really. What they can do is recognise that people feel patronised and not listened to and they say things they want to hear. They dont call them bigots or terfs or racists or 'coconuts'.
You dont get a sense of betrayal from people who are openly super rich and openly throw money around on crap you get it from people who pretend to be on your side but then act as if you are idiotic backwards fools.
The Musks etc know exactly what they are doing by abusing the Left because the Left have spent a lot of time dismissing the belief systems of the traditional working class- socially conservative and often religious- traditionally Catholic in the UK and US-Irish or Hispanic. They have all that in common with many immigrant communities from India and Africa who they also love to insult if they dare to be Tories ( in other words, have free thought).

I suppose the thing about the super rich is that they're so removed from most of us that they're almost abstract. I don't like Elon Musk, but I'm never going to meet the guy and he doesn't really impact on my day to day life, so lefties saying I should hate Musk are kind of missing the mark.

If we hate anybody viscerally, it's people we're adjacent to who really do impact our day to day lives - the petty bureaucrat at the local council, or the Jobcentre manager, or the neighbour who plays jungle music at three in the morning.

The Labour Party doesn't go big on jungle music, but it's got shitloads of council bureaucrats and Jobcentre managers in its ranks.

Labour used to be a big tent with the unions as its centre of gravity. Deindustrialisation, and the unions going almost extinct outside the public sector, have killed off that model. Tony Blair at least realised that model was dead, though he wrongly assumed working class voters in the Red Wall had nowhere else to go.

The Labour coalition now is public sector workers, affluent lefty graduates, and ethnic minorities that aren't upwardly mobile. And two of those three groups are looking wobbly.

If you take the average Red Wall constituency, the incumbent Labour MP is a sitting duck unless Reform put up a truly awful candidate, and I don't even know how a Corbyn/Sultana candidate would pitch their campaign.

I'm beginning to forget what we were arguing about that started this discussion. But if someone wants to call themselves "working class" while having a conception of society as a whole that ignores or denies the reality of class conflict and views their interests as being peacefully aligned with those of capital, that's their right I suppose.

I don't really understand what that means, but it certainly doesn't mean anything relevant to the various traditions of socialism or the founding assumptions of groups like Your Party, all of which take as their starting point the reality of class conflict. It's advantageous to those who make their living from owning capital to keep wages low, unemployment high, workplaces deregulated, capital mobile and labour immobile, taxation flat and primarily drawn from income, trade unionism weak. All those things are disadvantageous to those who don't own capital but make their living from selling their labour. You don't need to be a professor of Marxist Studies to understand this.

If a genuine "self interested" working class party is simply one that supports the status quo of unfettered capitalism, then we already have several. Take your pick 😄

I don't think we were arguing. I was enjoying having an interesting discussion about socialism! I used to be pretty Leftist myself, a trade union rep, politics degree etc, did all the tuc training etc. My late Dad was a communist when I was a child and I grew up on those SWP stalls selling the Socialist Worker! My dad had mellowed as he got older although he'd never admit it and I suppose I feel I don't even fit into the Left now. I would never vote for either YP ot the Greens or whoever comes out of it now.Partly because I know people who got into politics when JC became leader and I find it extremely difficult to have interesting discussions about what we've discussed in this thread as I've found many trenchant and very ' no debate' about it.. I feel we've left each other behind really so I no longer feel I have skin in the game but it was a big part of my life at one stage and I used to have long discussions with my dad about it.

Who is "calling themselves" working class?

What you seem to be saying is that your implicit and rather fixed ideological world view is the hidden reality that the 'working classes' ignore at their own peril or misfortune?

You then go on to say that you " don't really understand what you have just posted actually means"? Is that right?

I actually used to teach Sociology ( Sociology/Philosophy degree) so I do understand Marxist theory.

You then go on to say that you " don't really understand what you have just posted actually means"? Is that right?

No, I meant that I don't understand what it means to identify as working class, while not acknowledging the reality of class conflict and believing your interests to be harmoniously aligned with those of capital.

Was Del Boy middle class? Most people think of working class as your background, not necessarily your politics. My working class dad voted for Thatcher in the 80s. So did his mum, an Essex school cook. She couldn’t stand the Labour Party. People don’t necessarily consider that they “identify” as working class like it’s a wanky identity label like “non binary”, but that it is their roots. If you think it’s solely ideological, you’re way out of touch with real people.

They are getting their Comms in place. There's been a video from Corbyn

https://nitter.net/jeremycorbyn/status/1971613759723704705#m

So glad he's finally appealing to the swan community

There's a type of modern Marxist who bases their definition of class solely on whether you're an employee. This conveniently means that head teachers and junior doctors are working class, but self-employed tradesmen aren't. It makes more sense if you look at the membership of Marxist organisations.

In practice, of course background is hugely important. Wayne Rooney might be very rich, but nobody seriously thinks that he's upper class.

Most Union members I know are solidly middle class. They're usually working with good salary, excellent job security and pensions.

And I'd say most working class are either in the precarious jobs or yes, self employed.

Things have shifted. As ever, privilege floats on the top, however the polticial situation changes. Actually explains sone of the bafflingly callous Union approaches to gender issues.

Why don't you try and just listen to people, then, without imposing your ideological structure onto what they say about themselves and their lives?

Nobody talked about 'identifying as' working class, anyway. What does that even mean?

How can we get unions to actually help the most vulnerable, then? Depressing....

I see what you mean (somewhat like the way a lot of Left Wing GC women feel more betrayed by Left than Right wing misogyny) and patronising attitudes like that are awful...but otoh are you saying the Left should then row back on things like women's rights & LGB (NOT T) rights so as to align with trad religious/socially conservative views? If so, not sure if I agree..

Ultimately though, assuming climate change is real, something will have to give... The question is what....