Britain

By Ray Goodspeed (member of Your Party in Leyton and Wanstead)

On 26 February, after an ill-tempered process, the results of the elections to the Central Executive Committee (CEC) were finally announced, showing a clear win for the slate around Jeremy Corbyn – “The Many”. Of the twenty four committee posts, 14 went to The Many and 7 to the Grassroots Left (GL) slate supported by Zarah Sultana. Three independents were elected, two of which were endorsed by the Grassroots Left. No less than twenty successful candidates were women!

The results in terms of elected positions overstate the degree of victory for Corbyn’s team. In terms of first preference votes cast, it was a  lot closer, albeit still a clear win. Under the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, about 38% of first preferences went to The Many, and 30% for the Grassroots Left, leaving 31% for independents.

After the complex process of vote transfers, many contests in regions/nations were close and a few regions returned one from each slate, including in London, which has a very large percentage of the total membership. In the South East region, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, an independent endorsed by the GL, topped the poll.

In the Britain-wide vote for the four “elected officials” (ie councillors and MPs), Corbyn easily romped over the quota of votes needed, but more of his votes transferred to Zarah Sultana than to any other candidate on his own slate, and both were easily elected. This indicates some yearning for unity among the leadership after all the controversy.

Neither of the MPs elected as so-called “Gaza independents” (now Independent Alliance) were elected. Instead a Grassroots Left candidate, Grace Lewis, a councillor from Coventry, was elected, together with a Corbyn ally, Laura Smith, a left wing ex-MP from when Corbyn was leader. So each slate effectively took two of the four positions. That is not an overwhelming victory.

No surprise

It should have come as no surprise that Corbyn and his allies won. He has hugely more name recognition than any other candidate and a passionate and loyal following from the time when he led the Labour Party and suffered such victimisation. Even many who have serious criticisms of his decisions during that period, and since, have a residual affection and loyalty for him. In an internet voting system, with more passive members voting at home, and with local activists having no access to membership lists, election of his slate was always the most likely result. Even the Grassroots Left slate endorsed him!

He had also assembled a very large mailing list via his Peace and Justice Project that was a little dubiously used to openly urge people to vote for The Many. He remains the main name and face of Your Party, and his victory simply makes that official. He will now be named as “Parliamentary leader” by the incoming CEC – Party leader in all but name – effectively ending the collective leadership model, which I have previously argued was an error and a recipe for more confusion and muddled public appeal.

The actual method of electing the CEC by regions/nations, with each having two CEC reps, needs to be looked at again before the next elections. For example the two winning candidates in the North East region each got an average of 280 votes after transfers, while the two successful London CEC members averaged 1,472 each. While regional representation is important, such a disparity in the size and membership levels in different regions needs to be properly weighted so as to avoid an unrepresentative political result.

Just over 25,000 members voted, out of a “verified” membership of around 41,000 – a turnout of 61%, although Members needed to log in and verify their membership online to get a vote. These figure are substantially fewer than the claimed 55,000 “paid members”, and of course, massively down from the heady days of last summer when it was hoped that hundreds of thousands of people would join.

And there is further confusion, in that the website page with the detailed voting figures for the four elected officials section says that the number of “full members in good standing, who joined us before 2026-02-07 and verified their identity” is only 34,359 – giving a turnout of 70.19%. It seems that nothing is straightforward in Your Party!

Whatever the figures, however, Your Party remains by far the largest explicitly socialist left party outside the Labour Party for very many decades. And the turnout was not that bad, considering that locally based activists have no direct way of knowing who, in their areas, are members and so had no way of mobilising and encouraging people to vote.

Alternative socialist policies

The essential duty facing the party and its new leadership now is to move beyond the past controversies and divisiveness and to present the party as a clear alternative, based on class-based, socialist politics. The public profile should be laser-focused on responding on social media, and in the mainstream media where possible, to the betrayals and half-measures of the Starmer government and the threat of the right-wing Tory party and the far-right Reform UK while advocating for a principled socialist alternative.

This focus should not be that difficult. On most issues the political differences between supporters of the two slates are not huge, though the Grassroots Left leans more towards an openly anti-capitalist, socialist position while The Many seem more inclined to make compromises and present the more moderate social-democratic policies of the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos. It is the classic broad church of Labour mythology, but without the openly pro-business agents acting as a fifth-column!

The Grassroots left needs to accept, for now, that they are in the minority, and adopt a more “team-player” approach. As time goes on, some of the better CEC members from The Many could be won over to a more left position under the influence of events if they are approached in a friendly way. There are good people in both camps. Sultana herself can concentrate of having a go at Starmer and his gang and the Tories/Reform, and maybe get more experience in how to sell the policies more effectively to undecided people.

But for this to happen, crucially, Corbyn and his team need to realise that a large minority of the new party, maybe 40%, support the policies and the democratic aspirations of the Grassroots Left, including the commitment to dual membership. It would be insanity, and could be the death knell of the party, if they now launch into a process of suspensions and expulsions of members from the broadly Marxist left. Wasting time and energy on sniffing out and expelling members of socialist groups (whether or not they call themselves a party) would be catastrophic.

Many of these members are the most active and selfless activists in local areas, and are often leading local trade union reps or stewards involved in disputes. Many have worked tirelessly to keep Your Party “proto-branches” going in hundreds of localities since last summer, along with many new activists who have worked closely with them, and others who have left the Labour Party.  My own “proto-branch” has held regular well-attended monthly meetings, set up social media accounts, leafletted door-to-door, at stations and at street stalls, recruiting new members,  and are preparing to stand some candidates in the London Borough elections in May.

We have done all this, with no money or membership lists,  and while fighting off demoralisation, as the national party went from dithering and radio silence over the summer to factional bloodletting through the autumn and winter. Expelling members of left groups would hamstring all of these efforts, turn the attention of members inwards, and make us look ridiculous – yet again. That could be the final blow to the viability of the party.

Membership should be open to all socialists who accept the basic principles of the political statement passed at the November conference and who do not separately contest local or Parliamentary elections.

Most urgent task – form branches

The most important, urgent organisational task is to establish formal local branches in as many areas as possible. The CEC must throw all its resources at achieving this quickly. In London, Wales and Scotland, for example, elections will take place on 7 May that will not be held again for four or five years. We need to organise inaugural meetings, elect officers, access full local membership lists, get money from members’ subscriptions and then move to select or endorse candidates. This needs to go hand with building the support and membership of the party, joining up with local trade union and community campaigning.

Of course, Your Party still faces major challenges. The frankly astonishing rise in support and membership of the Green Party under Zack Polanski, especially among younger voters could not have been predicted, even by Polanski himself. At the time of writing it has 216,000 members and has just achieved a Parliamentary by-election triumph against Labour and Reform that has rocked the UK political system. This has been widely welcomed on the left and it would be foolish to deny that this success, while Your Party was going through its painful birth pangs and making serious mistakes, will continue to seriously limit the development of the new party.

However, Your Party still has the potential to become an important force on the left. Its progress so far has occurred before it has even properly existed. If it now looks outwards, improves its national profile, and is well-organised locally, it could increase its support and membership and become a focal point for the left in each area.

It can draw together people with enormous experience in the trade union and Labour movement as well as those in the anti-war and Palestine movements, renters’ activists, climate change campaigners and many other community activists. As such it has solid campaigning and community roots that the Green Party, as a mainly electoral vehicle, often lacks. And If the Greens achieve widespread electoral success in local government, their radicalism will be put to the test.

Your Party is now likely to be a longer term, patient project of building a socialist mass party rather than the sudden, immediate success that was hoped for. But it can still play a smaller but important role if it works correctly. But to do this it must remain a democratic party of its members and a unifying and inclusive party of the whole left, free of bureaucratic manoeuvres.

[Featured photo – Jeremy Corbyn – still from ‘The Many’ campaign video from The Many facebook page]