Editorial: a balance sheet of Your Party conference

A full week after the founding conference of Your Party – now its official name – we can take stock of the event, and its significance. The event was marked by real enthusiasm from the members present, and there is clearly a burning desire to establish the new party on a firm democratic footing after so many months of delay, splits at the top and disappointment.

There was still some anger and frustration at the factional manoeuvres of anonymous people at the “centre” of the party. Alongside this, there was simple relief that the conference had finally taken place at all and there was a straightforward yearning to “get on with it”.

As much as anything else, the conference allowed delegates to mingle and discuss in a comradely fashion what they are doing in their own locality in many of the new “proto-branches” set up over recent months, even without membership lists being made available.

And the conference did succeed in agreeing all four foundation documents: a revised political statement of what the party stands for; a constitution; a set of standing orders; and a document setting out strategy over the next year.

The final text of the political statement was agreed by 92.8% of voters and the constitution and the other two documents, as amended,  were also ratified by huge majorities of around 90%. The name “Your Party” was agreed to be permanent, from among four very unappetising options. The voting was done by the 2,500 delegates in addition to thousands of members who voted online, making up around 11,000 in total, representing about 20% of the membership.

Although the mainstream press predictably would focus on divisions at the top, left media publicists, like Novara Media and Owen Jones, seemed to veer between very cautious optimism and great disappointment that the promise of the summer was not fulfilled.

Some supporters left with their heads in their hands

It was understandable that potential supporters of the new party would put their heads in their hands at some points over the weekend. In an act of either astonishing stupidity or deliberate provocation, some members of the Socialist Workers’ Party were expelled from Your Party by email, some already in Liverpool or on the train. Others were denied entry to the hall.

The expulsion emails were not signed by a named individual. There was no due process, hearing or hint of an appeal. And this was done the day conference was due to debate the very subject of the eligibility of members of other such groups to join Your Party.

A large proportion of the members in the hall had previously been in the Labour Party, and had been suspended, expelled or left in disgust at the authoritarian manoeuvres of the Starmer clique, David Evans, former General Secretary, and the ghouls around Morgan McSweeney. Party officials were given free rein to suppress dissent and crush opposition.

The very idea, therefore, that Your Party members would tolerate such actions as the first act at an inaugural conference, was inconceivable. It showed just how out of touch some of the top organisers of Your Party really are. We can only hope that having had their actions roundly defeated by a democratic vote, those who took this decision will hold little sway on future party strategy.

We should also be honest about it: the “unnamed officials” must have been acting with the consent of Jeremy Corbyn. It is too common on the left to talk of the “people around Corbyn” making serious misjudgements, while protecting the man himself from criticism. It is time he is called out, unless he explicitly condemns such actions.

Left Horizons opposes authoritarian measures against socialists

Left Horizons is opposed to many of the policies and tactics of the SWP, but we oppose any such authoritarian measures in Your Party. Many ordinary local members will have seen SWP members working hard with other socialist groups and unaligned members to build local branches, and would see their exclusion as an injustice.

In the event the exclusion backfired spectacularly. Partly as a response, members voted by 70% to accept dual membership of different parties, although the ‘other’ organisations need to be as agreed by the new Central Executive Committee (CEC). It was also a shock decision for the party to vote (by a narrow majority of 51.6%) to opt for a collective leadership made up of the elected officers and spokespeople on the CEC rather than have a single leader.

This was clearly a rebuke to Corbyn, who will not now be the first leader of the new party so closely associated with his name. It doesn’t augur well for the future that after the constitutional votes had all taken place, there was a ‘rearguard action’ – we would suppose by Corbyn’s supporters – to  try to persuade members to reject the whole constitution in its entirety. That fell flat, getting less than 10% of the vote.

While Jeremy Corbyn still enjoys widespread respect and even affection in the movement for the central role he played in the surge to the left in the Labour Party between 2015 and 2019,  many are now tiring of his indecision, mixed messages and his reliance on a shadowy group of the same advisors who surrounded him when he was Labour leader. One clear result of this conference is undoubtedly some damage to his reputation.

The conference participants were selected by sortition (or ballot), based on demographic weightings. As a result of this random selection, many delegates were clearly very inexperienced, as far as speaking, procedures, standing orders and processes were concerned.

Corbyn lost key votes, including on leadership

This was perhaps the intention of the organisers who came up with sortition – a means to deny ‘undue influence’ to local branches created and largely made up of active socialists. The online voting also made it harder for more experienced branch activists to dominate. Yet despite this, Corbyn still lost a key vote on his own leadership.

The press interpreted the vote for a collective leadership as a victory for the Zarah Sultana “faction”. It is certainly true that she has a much more radical socialist political position, and has significant and enthusiastic support among rank and file members. Left Horizons and socialists in Your Party support her on that basis. Her speech was received with a standing ovation, but there is also some underlying frustration at her tactical ineptness from time to time.

Sultana’s decision to boycott the first day of conference, in solidarity with the expelled members, meant sitting out Corbyn’s main speech and it meant that the ‘divisions’ were eagerly seized upon by the media, distracting from the main event, the launch of the new party. The premature and unilateral launch  of the first membership portal was also a serious error, since it led to a complex and damaging dispute over party funds.

The first day of conference, therefore, was far more fraught and fractious than it needed to be. There was a total lack of transparency with regard to the expulsions and how some amendments had been put on the agenda and others not. Delegates resorted to various subterfuges and pretexts to get called to the rostrum so they could to protest from there instead of to the conference arrangements committee.

This clearly tested the patience of some delegates, even while being supported by others. But that is what happens when you try to run a party with anonymous authoritarian attacks, and refuse to allow any points of order from the floor. Cutting off the speakers microphone and stopping the live feed to members at home only made the situation worse.

However, in spite of all these regrettable events, many good decisions were taken via the online voting after each conference session. The revised political statement survived attempts to remove the word “socialist” and references to the “working class”.

Final political statement

The final political statement is published elsewhere, but a key paragraph now reads: “Our task is to build a mass party for the many, rooted in the broadest possible social alliance, with the working class at its heart”. While the nature of this “social alliance” is unclear, and the commitment to socialism and public ownership in another paragraph leaves a lot of ‘wriggle room’ for different interpretations, the new statement at least allows the potential for developing a party with consistent socialist ideas.

Crucially, the conference voted to appoint a Workers’ Movement Commission to investigate and develop the possibilities of trade union affiliation. This may be a key to its longer term success, though it is unlikely that a major trade union will want to affiliate to Your Party in the near future, even if they were to disaffiliate from Labour. Your Party does not offer the chance of electoral success and influence on government that trade union leaders crave.

Going forward, members generally voted for motions that gave the greatest autonomy to local branches. They voted by 94% to ban gifts or second jobs for MPs. They decided to elect the Central Executive Committee by English regions and Scottish and Welsh nations.

The CEC will be elected by late February and a committee – again appointed by sortition – will oversee the “Independent Alliance” MPs until then and aspects of its make-up have still not been finalised. The documents had already given more priority to members-based official branch formation as an urgent task.

It is unlikely that Your Party will be in position to stand large numbers of candidates in the May 2026 elections, given the timescales, and members agreed to endorse other, non-YP independent socialist candidates as well. The voting did endorse, by a majority of more than 80%, the tactic of fighting for an anti-cuts budget.

It also amended the first year strategy document to include “anti-oppression” as a strategy principle and committed the party to fight for trans liberation as part of it, reflecting both the concern at current attacks on trans people and also the high number of YP trans members, after their betrayal by the Labour government.

Future conferences will be a little different

Unfortunately, the members voted for future conference participants  to be also partially selected by sortition, alongside delegates from branches. Similarly, it allowed for votes on motions and even the sending of motions to conference to be done by individual members online.

Online voting and sortition may give the appearance of increasing membership inclusivity, but they carry dangers with them: notably a lack of transparency over the sortition algorithm and the absence of elected rank and file tellers with online voting. Branch delegates can also be held accountable for their decisions. Voting in any case, should be based as far as possible on informed discussion and debate and that is not best organised when members are isolated and voting outside party structures.

Given the controversies over the last few months and management of the conference itself, it is still by no means certain that Your Party will develop as a major electoral force that is able to take on a Starmer Labour Party, the Tories or Reform. A combination of the errors by the organising leaders, and the extraordinary growth of the Green Party under Zack Polanski may severely limit the appeal of Your Party.

The party claims almost 60,000 members, making it the biggest ‘socialist party’ outside the Labour Party for the best part of a century. It has a network of members all over the country, both extremely experienced socialist activists and trade unionists, and new layers of enthusiastic younger campaigners.

Over the next few years, it may play a significant electoral role in some areas, particularly if it makes local deals with the Green Party, and if it offers a home for those wanting to reinvigorate the socialist left in terms of workplace and community campaigning. It could even win some of the Green Party’s recent recruits due to its links with the wider labour and trade union movement.

We cannot rule out the future influence of Labour

But for the foreseeable future it seems likely at best to be a relatively small left party, similar to parties such as Die Linke in Germany, but facing much greater electoral hurdles under the UK FPTP electoral system. If Your Party fails to establish a ‘critical mass’ of local councillors and MPs, then it may languish as a minority left party indefinitely.

And then we cannot rule out the influence of the Labour Party on future events. The idea that Labour is ‘dead’ is a nonsense. As we have argued, the Labour Party is more than just Keir Starmer. Indeed, the careers of Starmer and Reeves appear to hang by a thread. Not a single serious political commentator, thinks that Starmer will lead the party into the next election. He may be challenged as leader after the expected disaster of the May elections.

If Starmer were replaced by someone to his left, it would ‘break the ice’ in terms of opening the party to change and renewal to the left. It would give hope to the left-wingers still in the Labour party and may even lead to some people rejoining. The key will be the role of the affiliated unions who will be forced to put their own members interests above loyalty to the current leader.

Any increase in support for a renewed Labour Party, even one based on offering slightly more reforms under capitalism, would tend to further limit the chances of success for Your Party.

We live in extraordinary times. The political system of Britain has not been as fluid or complex for a century and that applies to its left wing more than anywhere else. The job of Marxists remains, as always, to build support among workers for the genuine ideas of socialism and offer an alternative to the chaos of the profit system.

That means being involved with and discussing with workers and youth in Your Party, within the Labour left, within the left of the Green Party, in the trade unions and wherever they can usefully advance socialist ideas.

[Feature picture of Jeremy Corbyn addressing the conference, and the inset picture are from the conference live feed on YouTube]