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

Two big wins for the Greens in this week's council by-elections. One in North Somerset, basically in the Bristol suburbs, where they weren't just running in a stronghold but have a local understanding with the Lib Dems, who ran a paper candidate and didn't campaign.

The other was in Canterbury where the Labour vote collapsed, and I would guess at least some of that is the anti-Rosie element in Canterbury CLP having gone over to the Greens. Where the pro-Rosie vote there goes I'm not sure - there's no vehicle for it, so it probably scatters or stays at home.

The left-of-Labour scene is a mess of contradictions right now, and I think a sensible breakdown would be this:

• Team Corbyn + Operation Muslim Vote + Mothin Ali and the Muslim sectarians hiding out in the Greens. Platform: left wing economics, Third Worldism and Corbyn being relaxed about Muslim candidates' social conservativism.
• Greens + Team Sultana + Trots. Platform: rainbow dildo omnicause.
• The "mango" element in the Greens outside of London/Brighton/Bristol who are all about nimbyist councillors would probably be happier in the Lib Dems.

Of course it won't be anything like this tidy. And as Polanski will find out if he allows Sultana into the Greens, no sooner will she join than she'll try to take it over.

Sorry, what does mango mean?

Mango - yellow green meaning Greens who are a bit like Lib Dems sometimes seen as Teal - blue green i.e Greens who could be liberal Tories. A good example being the rather posh and well off Deputy leader Rachel Millward who is still desperately trying to keep asylum seekers out of her area one day and then defending them another.

Meanwhile the row in YP continues with Iqbal Mohamed getting into a twitter war by saying men and women are a thing in a response to Adnan's departure.

Coverage of this development
https://archive.is/4yYOc

Lots of other stories covering YP issues:
What does Adnan Hussain's departure mean for Your Party and the British left?
For the party to succeed it would need to draw together voters of many different backgrounds and political priorities

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-does-adnan-hussains-departure-mean-your-party-and-british-left

I hope Zarah Sultana does join the Greens, purely for the entertainment value. I would love to see how Zack Polanski would cope with her shenanigans.

I reckon they'd do the Zack and Zarah media rounds, to lots of adulation, but things would head south shortly after that.

Iqbal Mohamed row is getting attention in Telegraph

Your Party in fresh trans row
Iqbal Mohamed raised ire of pro-trans co-founder Zarah Sultana by saying ‘hard-won rights of biological women must not be taken away’

Responding to an activist who welcomed Mr Hussain’s departure and claimed that he was “transphobic”, Mr Mohamed wrote on X: “Transphobic how?”
On being told it was transphobic to want “third spaces” for trans people, he hit back: “No it absolutely is not, either in logic or British law.”
Mr Mohamed added: “White or brown men shouldn’t be telling or forcing biological women to give up their rights and private spaces to other biological men, black, white, brown or trans.
“What about the biological women’s rights? They have rights which I will always fight to protect. I also believe in the human rights of all trans and LGBTQ+ people but not by taking away the hard-won rights of women.”

https://archive.is/KLiRu#

Oh wowsers. It looks like Sultana is actually sitting on nearly £1m still.

https://nitter.net/charliemansell/status/1990107972538618120#m

Meanwhile Ash Sarkar has broken cover to criticise La ZS as wrong to exclude social conservatives

https://nitter.net/AyoCaesar/status/1989983427530010782#m

"..the fact is, if you're trying to build a mass membership party drawn from all sections of the working class, you're going to get a variety of views on a bunch of things. But it is totally fair to say that a wide variety of views are welcome in the membership, but there should be alignment amongst the leadership. Landlords can join the party, but they shouldn't be leaders of it. Same with people who wouldn't describe themselves as socialists. And it's perfectly legitimate to say that commitment to LGBT rights is a must for those in positions of leadership. That's politics! Parties have a political character, and it's fine to expect leaders to uphold that character!!

Meanwhile from earlier this weekend is a detailed breakdown from Collective (I think they are Karie Murphy's lot. Can't remember now) on Why Launching The Portal was such a ficking disaster. They are still being vetted by the electoral commission

https://nitter.net/NAJ562/status/1989311192519557424#m
"..Your Party was still going through Electoral Commission registration - which requires strict checks on finances, governance, data handling and technical capacity. No responsible party or officer would launch a paid membership system until the legal and constitutional requirements were in place: an authorised and compliant Data Controller, a secure payment route, and proper governance - all under Your Party’s control. That’s the law, not “inexplicable” caution. The 18 Sept portal wasn’t a bold solution - it was an unauthorised data and money operation that bypassed safeguards the EC requires and created data protection, company law and other financial and legal liabilities. .."

Sultana meanwhile is spinning it how she has bravely offered to take on the liabilities after Jamie Driscoll et Al declined and after relentless smears by Forces Allied to Corbyn.

A bit like demolishing your house then noting you are bravely offering to clear up when your neighbours ask why you did it

Iqbal has kept a pretty low profile but also seems to be a YP sceptic.

This is exactly the same problem they had in Respect 20 years ago, except the Muslim element are stronger and more confident now, with their own MPs, and even less likely to defer to the white left.

Meanwhile the white left continue to regard grassroots Muslims as NPCs who will do what the anointed leaders of YP tell them, and are trying to push the Gaza MPs out.

While they're increasingly open in their hostility to Muslims being in politics on their own terms, except they say "transphobes and landlords" instead of Muslims (I wonder where they got the idea that you can be hostile to minorities and still progressive if you use codewords?)

The reliably gormless Socialist Worker bigging up Sultana as a Muslim woman and therefore representative of Islam's true progressive TQ+ friendly spirit, when everyone knows she's an atheist and this is about as convincing as when Nick Cohen was bigging up Irshad Manji and her eccentric brand of Canadian lesbian Protestant Islam.

The 5 Pillars faction of Muslim activists' (Roshan Salih is who Sarkar was replying to) also really really have it in for Sultana. He's stated that most of the left supporters around ZS are openly anti Muslim, which is an anathema for people who'd never ever consider themselves as having an ounce of prejudice.

There's a clip from the Tower Hamlets march against ukip that's been seized upon by right-wing commentators that has a trot organiser trying to shush a masked group of Bruvvers from shouting Exhortations to The Almighty.

"We're all on the same side comrades"
"No we're not"

From the Telegraph article upthread.

Getting 'just resting' vibes

On Thursday night, a statement was posted to Your Party’s official X social media account with the signatures of all its would-be MPs – with the notable exception of Ms Sultana.
The post expressed frustration over “deliberate acts” obstructing more than £800,000 of funds from being transferred to Your Party. Ms Sultana currently runs MOU Operations Ltd, a company set up earlier this year to support the new party’s launch.
MOU was looking after around £850,000 that was donated through a membership portal created by Ms Sultana without permission from her fellow MPs at the height of the party’s feud.
A spokesman for Ms Sultana said she transferred £200,000 last week, with further instalments to be paid “as soon as possible”.

Iqbal Mohamed sez:

Initially a self appointed organising committee (OC) was formed containing people that us 4 Muslim MPs did not know or nominate or vote for. We were invited onto this OC.

All 4 of us voted for Zarah as co-leader against Jeremy's wishes and advice. Being co-leader was a condition/prerequisite for Zarah before she would resign from the Labour Party.

The dissolution of the OC and the co-leadership was driven by Jeremy due to division and mistrust in the OC and the way forward was agreed between Zarah and Jeremy, not the 4 MPs. We agreed to be stewards.

I cant even work out what has gone on here. So basically the 4 Muslim MP's without consulting with JC asked ZS to leave Labour, promising her that she could be co- leader, she then left Labour, announced her co-leadership of YP (again, without the knowledge or agreement of JC but presumably what the 4 MP's wanted) then the 4 MP's have now aligned with JC against her? Why did they go behind JC's back in the first place? Of course there was going to be 'divisions' in the party. It sounds like they were playing silly buggers in the first place!

It would not astonish me if Zarah said "I will only resign from Labour if you make me co-leader on the same level as Jeremy." She doesn't do false modesty.

If the Gaza MPs agreed to that against Corbyn's wishes... well, I can't help thinking of some bright spark in UKIP in 2004 who said "hey, why don't we recruit Robert Kilroy-Silk?"

Meanwhile the white left continue to regard grassroots Muslims as NPCs who will do what the anointed leaders of YP tell them, and are trying to push the Gaza MPs out
It is always a problem with the White Middle Class Left. They talk the talk with regards to 'anti racism' but they do not understand ethnic minority communities or the diversity within them, many are atheists and also do not understand religious belief, so do regard Black and Brown people as NPC's who are all the innocent oppressed who are just too uneducated and stupid to understand the True Religion of whatever they decide is the Omnicause of the day. It's why they don't understand class differences Black and Asian communities. They think Back and Brown people are all the same, when in reality, there are huge educational and class differences in all those communities, and they come from massively different backgrounds and experience. Its why they don't understand why people like Priti Patel are Conservatives, why they don't understand why so many Working Class people vote for Reform and the Tories instead of voting in the way they think people should vote. They do not think they just need to be educated by White people into RightThink. Their religion is part of them and if push came to shove, they will choose that.

Unless they are already all double crossing each other and no one actually thinks Jeremy is up to it, so they wanted to bounce him out in favour of a younger person. Or they have promised Sultana she could be co-leader just to use her as a public scalp from Labour then double crossed her when JC refused to play ball.

I think they needed a defection, and also Corbyn's people know that he's old. Whatever plans he has for himself, you can't have him as sole leader and not have a successor lined up.

The problem is Zarah, and none of them seem to have known her well, and they didn't realise what she was like. But she was the only MP they could find who was willing to defect.

They'd have been better off with Becky Long-Bailey. She's never going to set the world alight, but she wouldn't have antagonised all her allies in the space of four months.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16359847/filing-history

Termination of appointment of Andrew Josef Feinstein as a director on 25 October 2025

Termination of appointment of Bethan Winter as a director on 25 October 2025

Termination of appointment of Jamie Driscoll as a director on 28 October 2025

Appointment of Ms Zarah Sultana as a director on 28 October 2025

Adnan is now calling out the remaining left factions who should, if he is deemed a conservative, also be subject to progressive purge. Namely Salma Yaqoob and Dreadful TERF Mark Serwotka

https://nitter.net/AdnanHussainMP/status/1990112120990519462#m

Yaqoob noted that, oh cat among the pigeons, immigrant communities often didn't have "fat public sector pensions" or access to closed shop unionised workplaces so had to become landlords

nitter.net/AdnanHussainMP/status/1990067910782402831#m

Certainly Sultana isn't an orthodox Muslim. However, is it fair to say she's atheist? We don't know her personal beliefs.

Shabana Mahmood doesn't cover her hair, she's clearly sceptical of a lot of the misogyny in the wider Muslim community (grooming gangs among others) and more open on this than Sultana, who only discusses misogyny that affects her, she voted for gay marriage despite threats (among other things). Does this make her 'not a real Muslim'?

I think it's risky to say more liberal Muslims are 'not real Muslims'. Surely we want more of them, not less? They may not be seen as real Muslims by hard-liners, but should the hard-liners be the ultimate arbiter?

I know Zarah goes beyond 'more liberal' to 'insufferably woke", but this is a broader issue than that.

Closed shop? I'm regrettably sketchy on that history : was that earlier in the mid-20th century? So referring to older migrant landlords?

Tbf religion does seem to be oppressive for a lot of Muslim women in the UK, to varying degrees. Men too- for instance, those who want to leave the religion. But of course the picture is much more complicated.. and I know that isn't the kind of oppression you mean.
Obviously the woke people have about as much understanding of the kind of nuances beyond blanket racial oppression as an elephant does. Sultana & Corbyn et Al increasingly seem like elephants marching about & leaving chaos in their wake. ☹️

I think we should be a bit wary of 'anti Muslim' allegations.

Prejudice against a religion isn't the same as racial prejudice, no matter how many times people claim 'Islamophobia' is racist.

Secondly, if Trots/woke ZS supporters etc were talking or acting as if ALL Muslims do certain things, that's obviously wrong. But we don't know if they were saying that. They may have been making legitimate criticisms. Certainly, Tower Hamlets-style Islam leaves ample room for criticism, with the well-known actions of Luftur Rahman and his merry men etc

Otoh, if it was something like 'Muslims are transphobic scum' or similar, I'd be on their side.

Hang on, is it necessarily 'anti-minority'/racist/religiously prejudiced to criticise Gaza MP-type views?

Or do you mean 'anti-minority' in the view of woke progressives?

I think I see what you mean : rather than never allying with people who are clearly opposed to their core ideas, YP types are expecting conservative Muslims to ally with them but kowtow to the YP line, which seems patronising to say the least (colonial, in a sense?) . But as I've said, it doesn't seem racially prejudiced to simply criticise the views of Gaza Independent types, while acknowledging that they've got as much right to form parties, express views as anyone else.

I think it's quite legitimate for a new left-wing party to be hostile to Gaza Indeprndent types, the wrongness lies in the duplicity of acting chummy but then freezing them out, despite presumably always knowing their views on trans issue.

FWR shouldn't forget that beneath the amiable veneer (& I DO like the community spirit Hussein, Mohammed etc seem to have) they support a lot of stuff we do NOT want to encourage.

For one, are they the types to cover up the grooming gangs? I hope not..
Iqbal, for one, has a worrying stance on cousin marriage. The whole Gaza issue, while I disagree with a lot of Netanyahu's actions, is not one that should be dominating UK politics.

news.sky.com/story/mp-speaks-out-against-proposal-to-ban-first-cousin-marriages-13271018

BTW, is Irshad Manji both Muslim and Protestant? Would be much easier just to join a gay-friendly Protestant denomination..

Hmm, googling Manji, I can't find any connection to Nick Cohen, nor any evidence of her being Protestant as well.

I get scepticism of her claim to be Muslim when it's so hostile generally to gay people. But so are Christianity and Judaism theoretically, but in practice they've mellowed. Is it really helpful to mock people trying to make it more tolerant of gay people?

No, they're not the majority,but Islam isn't going away. Liberalisers are needed.

I don't know how sortition is going, but unemployed maharajah Tariq Ali says he hasn't got a Willy Wonka golden ticket. This is an obvious scandal since it has been established custom and practice on the UK left for decades that you can't have a conference without Tariq to lend it some class.

Meanwhile, Mrs Jeremy gives a high five to Adnan Hussain, which of course leads to the lunatic element of YP popping up in her comments to call her a Zionist stooge.

Sultana is a magnet for all the most toxic elements who were around during Corbyn's leadership of Labour. She may not mean to be, but she is.