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

OMG, that thread! All those far left righteous blokes. Reminds me of all the Haringey and Hampstead revolutionaries I used to know in the 80s.

Great article coveringthe situation:

Trans disagreements already threaten new Corbyn party
By <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/fIHU7/unherd.com/author/joan-smith/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Joan Smith

https://unherd.com/newsroom/trans-disagreements-already-threaten-new-corbyn-party/
https://archive.is/fIHU7

Corbyn will probably try to fudge the thing, but it can't be fudged.

Interesting that Sultana was in New York when Corbyn was in Blackburn. Her people have been trying for a few years to build her an international profile as the British AOC. I suspect she's got a tendency to believe her own hype.

Ultimately Corbyn needs Adnan Hussain and people like him a lot more than he needs Sultana, who might be young and energetic but doesn't bring an audience who aren't already committed to Corbyn.

Oh its just too much fun for those of us who had to endure so much abuse in the Corbyn years, followed by being on the 'wrong' team in the gender wars AND gaza. Its so much fun I don't even need to say 'I told you so'.

Would Your Party also support decriminalisation of prostitu sex work and drug use. That's the other parts of the holy trinity for progressive opinion as an article of faith

Most of what passes for 'progressive opinion' these days is not in any way 'left-wing' or 'socialist'. When a tiny numerically, but well-funded clique attempt to assert new rights for themselves, and at the same diminishing the rights and freedoms of a majority of the population, who should the Left support? You'd think it'd be obvious. Corbyn and Sultana may not get it, or not care, but the worst thing is, their views are widely shared across the political spectrum, as we see with the centrist LibDems.

Some members for sure would go for the whole set. However right now there is a real fight going on how the party will handle all sort of social issues. This is BEFORE the party has set up its basic Constitution.

I mean Hussain voted against the recent alterations in abortion law.

The only thing we can know for sure is that the party is doing classic leftist infighting in its earliest stages. The first party conference looks to be dramatic.

The Windy vs Hussain fight is getting even nastier.

Adnan Hussain MP

There was no hatred expressed India, it's a conversation that needs to be had, agreeing with women on their need for spaces exclusive to them is not an expression of hatred to any other community.

I stated the need for safe spaces for trans people, that's not hatred.

Quote
India Willoughby

^I honestly think @zarahsultana (who I have faith in) and @jeremycorbyn need to make a statement about @AdnanHussainMP and trans rights. My community is living in very real fear at the moment. Terrifying. We are sick to the back teeth of hearing trans hate is a “point of view.” x.com/adnanhussainmp…^

Adnan Hussain MP

3h
Being racist to get your point across isn't very nice, India.

Quote
India Willoughby

Fuck you, AdnanHussainMP. I am absolutely a biological woman. So sick of this constant degradation. Imagine if I said you’re not a real Brit. Are you going to let this clear transphobic declaration pass without action
zarahsultana jeremycorbyn
? Racism for trans people. If so, Your Party is doomed before it starts. Adnan is your Rosie Duffield (who he follows).
Quote
Adnan Hussain MP
Replying to @tombruhcks
They're not biologically women, hence trans-women.

This could be bad for Windy insulting women you can get away with sadly. His name is dirt in our circles, but the general public do not know how bad he is. Going for other men especially religious ones well that could result in real trouble. Countdown to all Windy's previous racist tweets being shared.

Well yes, and a Muslim man from Blackburn is more likely to push back than some dweeb from Haringey or Islington.

If the baizuo think the Muslims in the party are going to just meekly do as they're told, they're in for a rude awakening.

I see what you mean...essentially that if Muslims became a large section of the UK population, they could potentially make homosexuality illegal, and other things that the majority of the current UK population would certainly not support?

TempestTost, I agree it's odd that these Muslims are in Labour etc - on the surface. But Palestine & Gaza are hugely important to many, and the left is the side more (though ofc not all) in favour. Plus the Tories are less likely to tolerate anti Semitism.

Plus Labour had the history of being pro Muslim immigration, and the Tories it is true were more likely to have overtly racist MPs, as well as those simply concerned about immigration and Islam. (Ofc landscape is quite different now, though overtly anti immigration stuff like UKIP or now Reform is more likely to be right wing) It was Labour that turned a blind eye to the grooming gangs, forced marriage, lack of integration, & a lot of other issues that were unsavoury to say the least...

The Tories now are still more likely to clamp down on radicalisation than Labour is, and many are probs more likely to be suspicious of Muslims.

So although it seems contradictory at first, I can see why some Muslims are still voting left. It's different to the US where the Republican party seem less worried about Islam, probs bc the Muslim population is much smaller (though I don't know if it's more moderate than the UK's), so Muslims are more likely to vote for them. However I suspect some Muslims are probs still pro Democrat bc of Gaza.

Also, surely, plenty of Muslims are living in the UK quite happily, they are settled here, and they certainly wouldn't interested in sharia law or anything like that. I certainly know a fair few. But anecdata and all that, what proportion of Muslims in the UK that describes, who knows?

However I suspect some Muslims are probs still pro Democrat bc of Gaza.

Ummm.... Unlikely.

https://news.sky.com/story/abandon-biden-democrats-turn-on-president-over-support-for-israel-13061884

From October

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/hamtramck-donald-trump-arab-american-muslim

The residents of the Arab majority suburbs of Detroit are now regularly being featured in the Leopards Ate My Face Reddit

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/03/nx-s1-5249686/arab-muslim-voters-dearborn-hamtramck-trump-gaza

Social liberals and social conservatives can be found in both Conservative and Labour and have been for years especially after the Cameron period.

All ethnic minorities tended to vote Labour. Not all obviously many Muslim business people support the Tories for economic reasons. However what is not recognised by everyone is the election of the 4 Gaza MPs marks a huge turning point in British politics. British Muslims now have enough narrow support in some areas to elect who they want rather than us follow Labour. The issue is that it is no coincidence that the rise of that kind of sectarianism has triggered right wing response from a whole bunch of people. If you get tribal then everyone else will too. Notice a key element in this which is worth noting is Hindu voters previously solid Labour have in recent years started heading Tory. British politics are changing.

The same is true in sex and gender wars. A bunch of men started pushing women around like women's lib never happened. Suddenly you get women organising and doing stuff like it is 2nd wave feminism time. That is a big wake up call for ALL the parties however. Because when the gender wars are won and the pro-women side are heading for victory that energy is going to be still around. Your Party, The Greens, Labour, Tories, Reform. SNP, Plaid, Lib dems all are going to face questions. Who will tap into that energy remains to be seen it may be the left, right or centre.

Hussain in his posts has allied with feminists. However when the gender wars are over that alliance is unlikely to last. It can't. Because religions that oppress women are sooner or later are going to face the power of the Goddess and are going to have to change. The Zarah vs Hussain division is a prelude to that.

Agreed @fromorbit

What's happening in densely Muslim areas could really have been foreseen by looking at George Galloway's election campaigns of the past 20 years. Their effect has been limited by the fact that (thank god) you can't clone Galloway, but Labour have failed to take any lessons from them.

Gallows, whatever you think of him, is not a stupid man. His break with the far left was based on figuring out that Muslims breaking from Labour will no longer be content to be NPCs for the white left, but will want candidates who match their priorities and sensibilities. GG's own mix of economic leftism and social conservatism goes down well and predicts figures like Adnan Hussain.

These candidates could be serious players in 20 to 30 constituencies at the next election. Your Party may or may not benefit depending on whether Muslims or Trots have the upper hand.

And nothing happens in a vacuum. Your point about the Hindu community is a good one - it's similar to what we saw a couple of generations ago with the Jewish community. Jews still vote Labour in higher numbers than you might expect - I regularly encounter North London Jews who in class terms should be Tories but who have an emotional commitment to the left the same way that they're hereditary Spurs supporters.

I think it's similar with Hindus in that they're a strongly upwardly mobile community, with the added element that, the more Labour looks like the Muslim party, the more they'll look for alternatives.

I don't know where the women's energy goes when the gender war is won. I know on FWR there's a strong bias to the left and a hope (though not necessarily an expectation) that women will force the centre left parties to become sane on this issue. It might happen, I just wouldn't bet on it - there's a big anti-reality lobby in Labour, and I think it's even more dominant in Lib Dems/Greens/SNP/Plaid.

Kemi of course has been all over the gender war, but the Tories might just be moribund at this point.

I'm not betting on Reform being the beneficiaries, but they have the wind in their sails at the moment and Tim Shipman had a big piece in the Spectator the other week about women shifting to Reform in the polls. Two things there. One was the women's safety press conference they did as part of their summer crime campaign, with Andrea Jenkyns and Sarah Pochin and Laila Cunningham and that woman who leads Kent council and not a bloke in red trousers in sight. That was clearly an attempt to move onto Labour territory, since Labour have long seen VAWG as their issue.

The other thing, which isn't formally Reform but part of their vibe, is the emergence of the Pink Ladies movement around the migrant hotel protests.

I'm not saying that women's energy in the next few years necessarily goes to the right, just that it's up for grabs and we can't underestimate the left's MRA tendencies.

Great analysis there. Yes totally agree it is interesting to see new developments on both left and right. You list a lot of the interesting new grass roots stuff happening. As you say we can't predict what is going to happen easily.

I think 2026 is going to be a crisis point.

The Supreme Court judgement will be being enacted
May Elections in Wales and Scotland - all the parties including new ones fighting for position. Possibility of Labour losing majority in Wales is high. Reform to become major player in Scotland
Debate over immigration will intensify
Effect of Trump's tarrifs on world economy will hit.
US midterms in November

Meanwhile Hussain is appealing to universal class based politics. The debate in Your Party is going to be interesting. Do the interests of white middle class men like Windy who probably voted Tory, who say they are trans overrule Muslim MPs often representing poor areas?

Adnan Hussain MP

Class politics & solidarity unites across race, religion, gender & other differences that set us apart & have the potential to build a mass movement. Identity politics do nothing but tear apart and cause division. Unite around similarities stop pulling apart over differences

This is of no concern, Corbyn is a spent force!

Adnan Hussain is a really interesting character, and Blackburn is a weird constituency, having been Labour forever until last year.

Last year Hussain fluked a win with only 27% of the vote, 130 or so votes ahead of Labour, with a Galloway candidate in third place. With the polls the way they are, it might be that he'll be going head to head with Reform in 2029, with Labour a distant third.

Muslims are not a majority of the electorate in Blackburn, they're maybe 40% and Hussain can't rely on their unanimous backing.

So if I were Hussain and I wanted to be re-elected, my priorities would be:

• Be a very good constituency MP with a hyperlocal focus - establish yourself as Mr Blackburn
• Stress class and economic issues - the local Muslim community is heavily working class and you might just win some crossover votes from working class whites
• Don't get involved in the trendy left's identity politics, which will alienate your working class constituents who are mostly pretty socially conservative

I think all of this is compatible with Corbyn's emphasis on foreign policy, which means Corbyn is pretty popular in Muslim communities, and Corbyn favouring a federal setup giving autonomy to local candidates. It's not compatible with Sultana and her allies trying to have a centralised party with a firm TWAW position.

I've been waiting for years for the left to tear itself apart over the conflict between conservative Muslim values and the demands of trans activism. The only surprise is that it hasn't happened sooner. Joan Smith's final paragraph puts it perfectly:

'It’s not so much single-issue politics as a refusal to allow people to dissent from a rigid party line. In an era of slogan-based politics, “trans women are women” has equal billing with “free Palestine”. But which will the Corbyn-Sultana crusade choose?'

And wider aspects of feminism and secularism. Its all coming!

Here's an interesting straw in the wind though - the other week I got a glossy pamphlet from my local Labour MP on his first year in office.

By way of context, my constituency is very urban, very working class, very non-white, and has had an overwhelming (sometimes 100%) Labour majority on the local council forever, which doesn't seem to have been affected by the area having terrible social outcomes.

By way of further context, my local MP is a gay man who for a long time was a bigwig in LGBT Labour.

His annual report doesn't mention anything in the way of ID politics. It avoids mentioning any controversial national issues at all. It's all about his casework, the number of PQs he's asked, a list of the local businesses he's engaged with.

The most interesting thing about his annual report is that there is no Labour Party branding at all. It could be a communication from an independent MP.

This has happened before with Respect as led by George Galloway and eager trots. The T was not really a thing 20 years ago but longtime SWPer Lindsey German was reviled for saying, when asked to decide between new socially conservative voters angry about Iraq and Palestine, and support for gay rights, that the latter was "not a shibboleth". Appropriately biblical language

I know Lindsey of old, though I've never been particularly friendly with her.

I'm interested that Lindsey in recent years has tentatively come out as a mildly GC feminist. I think she still believe in the materialist side of Marxism. Her former comrades now enemies in the SWP, notably the horrible Sheila McGregor, have become pure Butlerites on gender and have been aiming a lot of fire at Lindsey.

Damn it, they're going to make me like her and I swore that would never happen.

I think she still believe in the materialist side of Marxism.

And so she should. One of the nutty things about trans activism (and, let's face it, every single element of it is completely insane) is the idea that it is a left-wing or Marxist cause. Marxism is rooted in material reality. It recognises that the oppression of women is based on women's reproductive capacity. It is not compatible with identity politics in any shape or form.

This is very much a post modernism thing with the more bonkers activists. Communism as in blue hair and identity stuff rather than state control of resources.

Based on the cases in Blocked and Reported they also see the family unit as inherently capitalist. Cf Laurie Penny and her fangirling of Michel Foucault