Source: The Conversation – UK – By Parveen Akhtar, Senior Lecturer: Politics, History and International Relations, Aston University
The launch of Your Party, a new leftwing offering for British voters, was meant to embody a different kind of politics. It was to be collective and collaborative – a political movement built from the grassroots up.
At a time when trust in politicians is low and cynicism high, the idea of a new movement on the left captured imagination. Almost immediately after it was announced, 80,000 people expressed their interest in joining.
Yet the collective has, from the start, been beset with problems. Former Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced the party’s launch apparently before Jeremy Corbyn, her partner in the endeavour, was ready. A debacle over who was holding on to some £800,000 in donations led to a very public spat between the two even before the party could get on its feet.
Amid this confusion, between launching in July and holding its inaugural conference in November, Your Party has already shrunk. Those original 80,000 potential members have become 55,000 signed-up members.
Of these, 2,500 people were selected through a lottery system to attend the party conference. And as they congregated in Liverpool, it quickly became clear that it would not be plain sailing. Delegates were caught between idealism and infighting – between a genuine and urgent desire to create something new and the old factionalism that has long preoccupied the British left.
The tension was visible even before the conference began. On the eve of the event, Corbyn appeared at a poetry and music evening where he was interrupted by hecklers demanding he denounce Zionism.
For a man who has spent his political life campaigning for Palestinian rights, the moment was indicative of a key issue the party must confront: a puritanical one-upmanship. This was fringe politics, where nothing you do is quite sufficient. For all the talk of solidarity and comradeship, the left remains a space where interrogation around ideological purity is never far away.
Opening the event, councillor Lucy Williams attempted to confront the tensions head on. Everyone knew there had been loud disagreement, she said, “but I like to see our leaders fighting. I’d rather be in a movement where people care enough to argue than in a party where everyone nods along while the country collapses around them. Unity isn’t pretending that we all agree; unity is disagreeing honestly and then cracking on with it. We’re not perfect, but we’re real – and people will trust real.”
Her defence of the messiness of democracy was forceful. But for some delegates, her apparent defence of washing dirty laundry in public was read not as authenticity but as testimony that the endeavour was in descent. “Being real” in this incarnation was not an election winner.
Committed, diverse and hopeful
Attendees were young and old. Many were former Labour members. Others had never been involved in politics before. The conference was full of people deeply committed to a socialist cause: equality, equity and social justice.
But ideas about what these buzzwords meant were deeply divided. Divisions were not just about personalities and internal factions but about ingrained beliefs.
The promise of unity was quickly met with the realities of ideology. From revolutionary communists to conservative Muslims to trans-rights activists, there are uneasy alliances in Your Party’s broad church, many wanting change on their own terms. Compromise is too often viewed as weakness and a lack of commitment to the cause.
And yet, there was also hope, one young man who had left the UK after Brexit to live on the continent said he had to come back for the conference, “when your home country does something like this you just have to”.
Sultana was conspicuous by her absence during Corbyn’s opening speech. She had announced she was boycotting her own conference over what she called a “witch hunt” against members of other socialist organisations, especially those associated with the Socialist Workers Party.
Some had reportedly been barred because dual party membership was not allowed – until a vote at the conference changed the rules.
By day two, anticipation was building about whether Sultana would show. The name of the party was formally recognised and a collective leadership model agreed. Corbyn had wanted a single leader model, Sultana, who had originally wanted to be joint co-leader, had favoured a collective model (knowing a contest between her and Corbyn would be difficult to win).
And then the waiting was over, Sultana’s arrival saw delegates pack the hall. There was almost a sigh of relief. She started by calling out the party leadership, for bullying, pointing to underhand tactics “straight from the Labour right handbook”. She set out her vision for a new approach – radical, impatient and angry. This would be a united left – all socialists fighting together. She was received rapturously. Her speech ended with chants of “Oh, Zarah Sultana.”
Yet this was not a unifying moment. Corbyn was present too, extending the courtesy she did not afford him when he first spoke to conference. The two did not appear together.
His supporters were disillusioned by her public dressing down of the unelected faceless bureaucrats (or the adults in the room, as they saw themselves). The votes may have been for maximum member democracy, but Sultana was really setting out the blueprint for Sultanaism. “This isn’t going to go anywhere. Any hope I had of an alternative to what we have now, of a united left, well it’s been tanked,” one disillusioned Corbyn supporter told me.
Before leaving Liverpool, the party had at least achieved some of its formal aims. It has a name, a leadership structure and some key constitutional provisions. The broader picture, however, remains harder to read.
The excitement of participatory politics was still there, but this was a hall full, mainly, of the converted. Those who wanted a more moderate or what they see as “electable” party, were left out in the cold. They will now be hoping that the chill does not kill any potential green shoots. Or it will be the Green party who will ultimately benefit, come elections in the spring.
Parveen Akhtar has previously received funding from the ESRC and the British Academy.
– ref. ‘A united left? It’s been tanked’ – what I heard when I went to Your Party’s first conference – https://theconversation.com/a-united-left-its-been-tanked-what-i-heard-when-i-went-to-your-partys-first-conference-271162
