Your Corbyn/Sultana Party - Discussion thread - Part 2

[fromorbit]

The YP starting conference is in the ACC in Liverpool between 29-30 November so only three weeks off. With competing factions involving Islamic conservatives, every variety of Marxist/Communist, former Labour members, trade union activists, entryists from SWP and SPEW, splitters from the Scottish Greens, trans activists and actual left wing feminists [not the nice kind] it is difficult to underplay how much controversy there is likely to be. So we will need a second thread in advance.

Thus far following the internal drama of the UKs newest left party has taken a whole thread. It has been a wild ride and the party still does not have a name.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5394557-your-corbynsultana-party-discussion-thread

Annnnd the rival policy papers are out of the starters gate

Max Shanley of democratic socialists gets in with his / their alternative set of proposals to hija guide conference resolutions

https://nitter.net/maxshanly/status/1986439045694591468#m

Nb: you cannot actually "un-recognise" a sovereign state in international law, is the key thing I have learned from the lectures of Sarah Paine. Citing India under Nehru recognising China's sovereignty over Tibet when the former was chummy with Mao.

I feel these threads need a theme tune. Something like The Archers, but with more menace. Possibly trombones.

How about this?

Perfect. 😂

Setting aside Corbyn, the politician, whose appeal i never understood, yourparty makes explicit the essential problem of British political economy. The public has rejected markets (left and right) There are many on mumsnet who have too. Certainly public unhappiness with the economy is understandable, but there's only one alternative to markets and that's central planning. Labour of old realized this, that's why you had Tony Benn laying out plans to nationalise the financial sector, and create boards to allocate raw materials, man power and investment to tightly regulated and partially or completely nationalised industrial sectors and create dynamic instruments to regulate pricing.

Anything less than that means that you revert to market based economics where regulation serves as a drag and disincentive to economic activity.

But in the present day, everyone on the left is happy to disparage markets, and yet has no appetite for the gigantic economic reorganisation that would be necessary to accomplish their abolition (or serious retrenchment) - energy, water, rail, and mail services constitute a tiny portion of the UK economy, and even less of UK employment. Taking those on will raise the cost of UK outlays to keep services running, but won't give them any measure of control over directing the economy, i.e. de-prioritising markets.

In general it's an dangerous gambit because it presents solutions that lack inner coherence, i.e. that can't possibly the correct course of action and that therefor breed cynicism.

I'm curious if other believe there's an inner logic that I'm missing. That there is an actual proposal on the left to usher in a post-market, post neoliberal order that at least has a minimum of coherence. Or if not coherence, is actually post-market.

Because central planning and markets can't effectively coexist? A tiny little-known country called China might disagree.

Well, I just realized that the other Green thread is still active so, I feel guilty continuing this one....

But, China is roughly my point. Benn didn't advocate eliminating markets either, he advocated making them explicitly subject to government and would selectively intervene or abolish them when they ran counter to the social good. To realisticly implement such a policy (a China like solution) is a total economic reorganization. Yet no one is even contemplating a plan remotely ambitious enough to bring about such an undertaking - setting aside the question of whether it would be desirable or feasible. And as you point out, it wouldn't actually abolish markets, which has become the fetish on the right and left. (my observation)

I'll hold off engaging in more discussion on this until the other thread fills up.

Isn't that what trots used to call state capitalism.

From the example of China, it's also a license for rampant cronyism where all the richest businesses are headed by CCP members

Theodore Dalrymple says from his time in Tanzania that even in the most remote areas it was never hard to identify the local party secretary, because resources were scarce but there was always one fat bastard in the village.

I'd have a lot more respect for the Max Shanly types if there was one - just one - of them who wanted socialism because they have a burning desire to pick spuds on a collective farm. But they seem to divide between the lazy ones whose idea of socialism is the state paying them to mooch around university indefinitely, and the energetic ones who dream of running the Stasi.

Funny, I was just considering Polanski's Messiah complex, and I think he just doesn't have the conviction or energy for it. At least when Blair got that gleam in his eye he really put his back into it.

I should probably motivate my question a bit. I've watched a number of interviews recently of the "what went wrong in Britain" variety that have been informed by Reeves's pre-budget speech. One of them mentioned the West Wing consensus and that basically there is a certain type of Labour and conservative leader that wants to go back to the politics of late 1990s early 2000s where there was a fundamental agreement about neoliberalism including markets and what was being argued about was the proportion of social spending vs. taxation; progressiveness of taxation and emphasis, but not about the basic logic of the neoliberal system: prosperity is to be maximized, prosperity depends on business productivity, productivity depends on investment, investment depends on sound financial policy and conducive business environment, etc.

Within the West Wing consensus smart young people bustled around solving various problems in a one hour format assuming the basic framework of neoliberal market ordered economy, i.e. every policy has well known tradeoffs.

The interviews have remarked that that consensus was never as deep or universal as it was presented, and that it has now broken down. And that media is in part to blame for privileging the consensus view and presenting it as the only alternative.

Going back to Rachel Reeves, her problem is a very obvious one and sympathetic, UK productivity continues to be sub-par, bond markets constrain debt levels, so some mixture of tax increases and spending cuts can't be avoided. Tax increases and other government interventions are likely to be counter productive to economic growth and therefore they may patch the budget and mitigate the worst harms, but they will further damage UK economic performance.

But a large portion of the population rejects that. They reject being beholden to the bond markets, they reject being beholden to international trade, the reject being beholden to the austerity of the central bank and yourparty, the Greens and Reform reflect that.

The problem is you can't just reject an unpalatable situation. Surely media wouldn't be to blame for insisting that 2 + 2 = 4 even when that summation is problematic. To reject the constraints of neoliberalism - the tyranny of the market - you have to have an alternative. Benn and old Labour more generally understood that. Whether you agreed with it or not they did present an alternative. Greens and yourparty and Reform reject neoliberalism/globalism/free trade/markets but don't offer a replacement.

That means the neoliberal consensus is still the only game in town. Media is right to privilege it and as much as you might sympathize with voter frustration their populist calls to overturn elites is a dangerous impulse which should objectively be cast in a negative light, because it's a call that lacks coherence.

Reform will be neolberalism on steroids, under the guise of "protest" and "radicalism" based purely on the cultural appeal of anti-immigration. It's simply a lie.

It's true that the Greens don't really have a coherent economic paradigm to replace neoliberalism with, although to be fair they're also the only party that has been honest about having to reject the assumption of perpetual economic growth in order to confront the climate crisis. So that sweeps away one of the foundations not only of neoliberalism but also of the assumed basis for judging whatever replaces it.

It's a bit early to say Your Party don't offer a replacement for neoliberalism when they barely exist yet, their constitution is still under debate and revision, and they haven't had their founding conference or published a single policy.

I disagree with Dalrymple on a lot, but he definitely hits a lot of nails on the head. Was that from a travel book he did? I know he did some travel books under his real name.

I don't want state socialism. I do think we should make some changes though. I'd like a revamped NHS, I don't want to give up on it, though maybe we could consider the European-style healthcare reforms. I'd like to see much more social housing, and much better state education. Potentially also nationalisation of transport, though not decided on that.

T'other thread has Sultana's latest cuddling up with the Democratic Socialists and a Trans liberation group.

Over the weekend she also published her proposals for party structure

https://nitter.net/zarahsultana/status/1987225710956609629#m

• allow members to join from 14
• including international membership
• youth section to drive the party

https://nitter.net/zarahsultana/status/1987226184544100638#m

• Wales and Scotland to set up their own parties

https://nitter.net/zarahsultana/status/1987227038256705787#m

Is she essentially using democratic socialists to do her policy proposals

https://transliberationgroup.org.uk/

Copying this link over as I think we all may like to marvel at what Sultana is supporting/endorsing.

'Demand No. 1: LEGALISE TRANS EXISTENCE

• Amend the Equality Act 2010 to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court ruling of 16th April 2025 by making it clear “sex” refers to a person's current lived sex and adding gender identity as a protected characteristic. Ensure that “gender-critical” beliefs cannot be treated as protected beliefs.
• Enshrine the right to self-identification of gender, including non-binary gender, for all purposes.
• Abolish gender markers from official documentation such as passports.
• Reject plans for the introduction of ID cards as an authoritarian imposition that will be disproportionately used to police and harass trans people, migrants, and people of colour.
• Scrap the Equality and Human Rights Commission - it is broken and not fit for purpose and should be replaced with an equalities body that actually protects human rights.
• Reject any attempts to restrict trans people’s rights to access public bathrooms and other gendered spaces, which we have freely exercised for decades. Trans people have a right to access gendered spaces by self-ID (including prisons).
• End the testing of hormone levels in women athletes, which has led to the exclusion of gender non-conforming women. Transgender women have been competing in women's sports for many years. Regardless of their success, the question of their participation should be looked at fairly. Transphobia and misogyny have no place in sport. No athlete should be excluded on the grounds of being transgender.'

'Demand No. 2: REFORM THE BROKEN SYSTEM

• Completely overhaul the Relationship and Sex Education guidance for schools. Children should be aware of all different types of people and their own options. Sex education should be queer and trans inclusive. Gender-critical perspectives should not be taught and trans people should not be framed as a “debate”.
• Institute a complete ban on all types of conversion therapy, including trans conversion therapy. Support for people questioning their gender should be affirmative of their desires while giving space for people to explore their feelings.
• Enshrine in UK Law the right to privacy over your assigned gender at birth and trans status, and oppose all attempts to leave the ECHR, which guarantees the right to respect for your private and family life, including confidentiality around your assigned gender at birth under Article 8.
• Introduce a new law abolishing all kinds of “trans panic” legal defences. Legally enshrine the right to not have to disclose your assigned gender at birth or trans status to potential sexual partners and reverse all convictions made of trans people on the basis of “deception” for not disclosing their trans status.
• Decriminalise all sex work (which trans people are disproportionately involved in), reversing all criminal and administrative penalties on sex workers. Regulate sex workers’ workplaces through employment law, allowing them to self-organise and form trade unions.
• Reverse the cuts to PIP and overhaul the system through a process which puts disabled people at the heart of decision making.'

'Demand No. 3: HEALTHCARE THAT WORKS

• End the discriminatory puberty blocker ban - a young trans person should not have to undergo the misery of the wrong puberty.
• Make HRT a right for all adult people with no legal restrictions, available over the counter on an informed consent basis.
• Abolish the GIC system and desegregate trans healthcare - monitoring and referral for specialist treatment should be done by primary care providers.
• Expand the range of gender affirming surgeries accessible on the NHS.
• Legally enshrine the right to transition - where a person has Gillick competence there should be no interference with their transition. This includes trans children, who should not require parental consent to transition.
• Legally guarantee bodily autonomy for all. A human being should have the ultimate say over what goes on in their own body. This includes a complete decriminalisation of abortion based on the principle “as early as possible, as late as necessary”.
• End all “corrective” surgery on intersex children. Nobody should be subject to medically unnecessary surgery without the capacity to consent.
• Fund fertility treatment for all who need it, it should be a legal right and not restricted by a lack of money.
• Expand mental health provision, provide support on demand and for as long as needed, given how disproportionately trans people are affected by poor mental health due to the discrimination we face.'

It's very useful to see the whole gender agenda laid out like this.

I wonder how much support there is for these policies among 1. the general public and 2. You/our/not-our party.

• Abolish gender markers from official documentation such as passports.

Then

• End the testing of hormone levels in women athletes, which has led to the exclusion of gender non-conforming women.

But how would they be ble to define what a woman was if they abolish all gender markers? How would they stop a cis man ♂️ masquerading as a trans woman 👠🤔

Not asking for much are they? Seem like reasonable lads.

Seriously though I have friends who have joined Your Party, this sort of nonsense is why I can't.

Back on that Ben Timberly twitter account alleging a stitch up with the sexist boys club from OP @fromorbit previous thread.

https://nitter.net/BTimberley/status/1987978200396476886

The "well known Birmingham personality" Shakeel Afsar who was an honoured guest is usually best known for fomenting sectarian tensions and was a figurehead in the protests outside the Anderton Park Primary school where a well meaning headmaster tried to introduce LGBT inclusive equality teaching to it's mainly Muslim pupils

https://news.sky.com/story/parents-against-lgbt-lessons-in-school-being-pushed-into-corner-11731820

I think there's still an exclusion zone round the school banning protesters

Tagging in case they get organised enough to be a factor. Part of me wouldn't mind if they do, because GPEW might start to look a bit greener if it lost all the watermelons and out-and-out socialists.

Looks like Ahmed Yakoob was there at the community event on Sunday too. Lots of manly PDA with Ayoub Khan MP.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ4ulaYjGsM/?l=1

The go - to lawyer for the guys who battered the police in Manchester airport. Also tried to oust Shabana Mahmood at the 2024 elections.

Is also awaiting trial on charges of money laundering.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjrlpe83yn5o

”a person’s current lived sex” 🤪