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

But the fact remains they pay considerably more in tax for it than we do.

Which also feeds into the immigration issue, because normie white Brits are generally very well disposed towards immigrants who work and contribute and integrate. Less so towards people who look like they're milking the system.

I don't for a moment discount Shabana Mahmood's experience of growing up with racism in Birmingham, but it's relevant that the summer protests have been at asylum hotels and not at Asian-owned corner shops.

There has been anecdotal rise in racism towards ordinary people, (plus reported incidents like the 9yo shot with the air gun, the Sikh woman raped & told to go back to where she came from
Or most recently the Sikh taxi drivers attacked.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2754rndwgo&ved=2ahUKEwiQ78Tk1YWQAxULW0EAHcMpA-UQFnoECB0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0eveOk8p69TERQCc8-QEG8

Tory leader Kemi has herself spoken of an uptick in racist messages being sent to her.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/24/kemi-badenoch-hysterical-level-personal-attacks-as-black-woman

But I agree lots of people on the migrant protests were there for the reasons you describe, it's wrong to conflate that with racist minority.

Problem is, many people have a difficulty with differentiation and critical thinking. So, Reform voters say they don't have an issue with muslims or people of Pakistani heritage, for example, so long as they arrived here legally and they adopt British values and contribute to the economy and their community; but I've seen some of those same people object to Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary tasked with the job of clamping down on illegal migration - purely because she is a muslim of Pakistani heritage.

in the same way some of these non racist people have said that Kemi Badenoch is 'not British', she's Yoruban and that a British leader needs to be British. For some people this simply ends up translating as 'white', and people of different ethnicities cannot be 'British'.

Inevitably this will end up in more generalised racist attacks; same as with the murder of two Jewish people outside of a synagogue in Manchester, yesterday.
That they are British and not Israeli is lost on some people; and even then the idea is that pro Palestine sentiment is focused on being against the Netanyahu government specifically and not Israelis in general...whereas in practice these distinctions are lost and wholescale prejudice bleeds through. ( of course some people just hate Israel full stop...whoever is in charge)

Which also feeds into the immigration issue, because normie white Brits are generally very well disposed towards immigrants who work and contribute and integrate. Less so towards people who look like they're milking the system.
I don't for a moment discount Shabana Mahmood's experience of growing up with racism in Birmingham, but it's relevant that the summer protests have been at asylum hotels and not at Asian-owned corner shops.

Because the people in migrant hotels are "milking the system"?

No.....Because they are receiving hotel accommodation; being given an income; taking taxis to GP appointments ( that British citizens increasingly cannot get) and in many ways being seen to take priority over British citizens who have paid their taxes. I can imagine some may refer to this as " milking the system" though. Migrants come knowing this is what will happen if they manage to get across the Channel in one piece.

Exactly. I know people are wary of 'racist' (similar with 'far right') after so many boy who cried 🐺 accusations, but it is equally dangerous to dismiss any possible racism uptick as crying wolf.

The main long-term issue is that immigration is the prime example of politicians saying one thing and doing the opposite. It would be one thing if a party fought an election on a liberal immigration policy and won - then it would have democratic legitimacy. But for the past 20 years we've had a feckless political class that made restrictionist noises at election time and did the opposite when in power.

And the biggest offender is Boris Johnson, because he was given an opportunity to set a post-Brexit immigration policy not constrained by the EU, he explicitly promised the Australian points system with priority given to high-salary high-skill immigration, and then, once he'd purged the Vote Leave guys from Downing Street, turbocharged low-skill immigration to record levels to power the Deliveroo economy.

And people wonder why nobody trusts the political class.

So what you actually get is performative nonsense around the small boats - which are a smallish but very visible part of the problem - like the Rwanda scheme, or Starmer announcing that he's smashing the gangs when nobody believes he's doing any such thing.

How this is relevant to a class analysis is that it's the working class who bear the overheads of immigration, and when the numbers go up the overheads go up. The overheads do not bear on our more privileged classes, for whom immigration allows them to feel more virtuous than the working class, as well as enjoying things like exciting new restaurants, or cocaine being much cheaper thanks to the Albanian gangs.

As for how this will play out in the New Party, it will be really interesting. I suspect the Muslim MPs, who represent working class communities that are long settled here, will be in favour of managed migration, while Sultana faction will have a position of basically infinite levels of immigration.

I suppose with Kemi some might mean that she's not as British as a leader should be because she came here at 16 after spending her childhood in Nigeria with stints in the US. I don't agree with this, and ofc they might still call her that even if she had spent all her childhood here.

I do think her comments to the Spectator about 'ethnic enemies' and tribal allegiances was very inappropriate behaviour.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/19/kemi-badenoch-nigeria-race-issues-tories

Also and her apparent lie about being offered a place at Stanford.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/31/doubts-cast-on-kemi-badenochs-claim-of-us-medical-school-offer

Wasn't she just being honest with her observations on ethnicity and identity in Nigeria. That identity is not based on skin colour, naturally, because virtually everyone is black, but on tribal affinity..and that there is prejudice between different tribes and regional identities. People don't identify primarily as 'Nigerian' but as 'Yoruba' for example.

What's 'inappropriate' about that, if that is her observation and experience?

I suppose you could say that. I still think it's deeply unprofessional and wrong for the potential PM to be talking about ethnic enemies. She talks rightly about migrants with values incompatible with British values, but then comes out with stuff like that..

Agree.

I don’t believe Sultana will be any more able to control her faction than I believe Zak Polanski will be able to. It’s bigger than them and the fault lines are too big and the demands too unreasonable and unreconcilable with party success.

Did you watch that whole speech of hers in the commons, though. It was very much about contextualisation and identity..in response to jibes from the Labour backbenches that she should be 'ashamed' to identify with a set of values that they didn't think she ought to......just because she is black? She was explaining that 'blackness' is not an identity in Nigeria.....but tribe is.

Cihmimanda Ngoze Adiche said she " didn't even know I was black until I went to America?" ( where 'blackness ' is an identity in itself)

I get that about blackness not being an identity, that makes perfect sense. I understand there are ethnic animosities, what I didn't like was the way she seemed to be saying she still followed that way of thinking.

To give an imperfect analogy, my family is partly Polish & that influences my attitude to Russia. But I try to be neutral rather than swayed by deep-seated national animosities & I certainly wouldn't bring up private feelings like that if I were in Kemi's kind of job.

But isn't it normal and natural to identfy with certain sets of values and to be reject or be less amenable to others, even within your own country?

I think she was referring to Boko Haram wasn't she, which is an extremist islamic militia?

Agree re values, it was the implication that they were enemies due to ethnicity as well that I wasn't keen on.

Nigeria is kind of the global norm, much more than the UK is. Tribal enmities by their nature are typically directed at the neighbouring group which seems identical to the outsider. A Serb villager in Bosnia, or an Albanian villager in North Macedonia, is not saying "Man, I really hate those Tibetans."

I have no problem with Kemi being proudly Yoruba, even if she expresses it awkwardly. It's authentic, and there are few examples of politicians being authentic. I don't think I agree with Tom Tugendhat on anything, but he's spoken very eloquently about his interesting French-Austrian-Jewish family background and how that's informed his Europhile stances.

Even if there's no enmnity, that granular distinction is what people from immigrant communities do. Leaving aside the woke "Latinx" jargon, the diversity of Hispanic communities in the US is not reflected by a bureaucratic category of "Hispanic" that could include Afro-Cubans, or indigenous Guatemalans, or Cameron Diaz. Actual Hispanic Americans tend to say things like "I'm Mexican" or "I'm Cuban".

I've had some wild exchanges on genealogy subreddits with Americans who think the American census is the yardstick for ethnicity around the world, and at least one who argued furiously that Guyana was a Latinx country because it's in South America. That would make David Lammy Hispanic, which I don't think anyone could seriously believe.

I don't have any issues with distinction without enmity, I wouldn't have minded her saying she felt Yoruba not Nigerian.

I know tribal enmity is the global norm. Moving away from that (for the most part) is why Europe is mainly better off than tribal areas.

Didn't know that about Tugendhat, certainly interesting.

It is weird about the US- the really seem to classify South Americans oddly. Seeing all Hispanics as 'POC' means they struggle to understand 'Latino' white supremacists like Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys or Nick Fuentes of the groypers.

The north of Nigeria is under sharia law and there is indeed a civil war in that country.

Nigeria is a very big country with a very big population ( of lots of different tribal ethnicities and even languages) so maybe it doesn't conform to Western ideas of what nationality or identity should be based upon? I imagine to someone who sees shared blackness as the prime identity or shared value....pointing out that this is not the case may clash with their own ideas somewhat.

I agree re the nebulous idea of global 'blackness' being an identity basis is silly.

It's the same way some people see shared ' brownness'. As if Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Asian Christians are a homogeneous groups who all have exactly the same experiences. Even within the different religious groups there are sub groups. More Muslims are killed worldwide as a result of Islamist attacks than any other religion for example. The Sikh community had to ask the police to stop the Pakistani rape gangs being called ' Asian rape gangs' because some of the victims were Sikh. Even when it comes to that and cousin marriages apparently the 'problems'comes from a particular region of Pakistan and is completely alien to others who are from other areas of Pakistan.

Exactly this. I've also read that some Muslim women's DV & SA charities think the grooming gangs abused Muslim girls too but they may have often not reported due to community control over them.

I suspect the reasoning would be different (couldn't be justified as abusing a 'kafir' as abusing a non-Muslim could be) but I suspect that such evil men probably wouldn't treat women they have control over in their community very well either...

Definitely true re Muslim-on-Muslim persecution. Obvs there's Sunni vs Shia & more moderate sects like Sufis or Ahmaddiyas get persecuted.

Sikhs have done excellent & very brave work exposing the gangs. I agree the use of 'Asian' was very bad (an extreme of this was the EDL focusing on it as a 'race war' so ignoring all Asian victims).

I've read r/exmuslim sometimes and people there often say that Muslims in Bradford etc are seen as fundamentalist by urbanised Pakistanis back in Pakistan. It does seem incredibly blind that Blair etc somehow let in so many Muslims who were the least likely to integrate. Whereas the US has issues with immigration too but their Muslim immigrants are generally moderate at least. Some polls say US Muslims are more likely to support gay marriage than evangelicals are, which sounds incredible but I guess could be possible.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.newsweek.com/muslim-white-evangelical-gay-marriage-907627&ved=2ahUKEwjwxq3Z9oWQAxUbV0EAHU5ZAu0QFnoECEwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0IxU0TzjOESmrAs31o3iMz