As Labour Party delegates travel home from their annual conference in Liverpool, Your Party’s conference draws closer. Members of the as-yet-unnamed party (Your Party is just a placeholder) will make the same journey that Labour members have this weekend, travelling up to the northwest between 29-30 November for a founding conference. And now the party has been officially registered with the Electoral Commission: Jeremy Corbyn is listed as leader and Adnan Hussain as the party’s returning officer. Zarah Sultana is not mentioned.
Since Sultana bounced Corbyn into announcing their plans, the pair have always been talked up as the party’s co-leaders. But a spat in recent weeks after Sultana launched the party’s membership portal without authorisation from Corbyn has poured cold water on their already rocky relationship. Sources close to Corbyn insist that models of leadership will be decided democratically at conference and add that has always been the case. The listing of Your Party is for registration purposes as an interim arrangement ahead of the conference in November. Electoral Commission rules stipulate that to register a party, a single leader must be named: hence Corbyn’s listing. Co-leadership is not recognised by the Electoral Commission.
Though the party is slowly but surely laying the foundations ready for its official launch later this year, some new members are already unhappy. Following Sultana’s false start launch and then Corbyn’s authorised announcement, many felt there was a lack of communication over what had happened to their memberships and the money they had paid to sign up. Your Party’s official X account saying: “For those who joined under the previous system last week, please be assured your data and membership is secure and will be migrated across. There is nothing more for you to do at this stage.” Yet, despite this, it has still taken some time to transfer all of the data received in the first membership launch over to the official portal.
It’s been a remarkably bumpy start for a party that was months, if not years in the making. Already whispers of new factions, alliances and defections are circulating among potential members and insiders. But one thing is clear, a new party is coming and it will be on the ballot paper next year.
[Further reading: Labour vs the left]
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