Sources close to Jeremy Corbyn have warned that Your Party will only survive if his slate wins the party’s leadership election on 26 February.
The New Statesman can exclusively reveal that if Corbyn’s slate does clinch victory over Zarah Sultana’s slate in elections to Your Party’s central executive committee, Corbyn will become the party’s parliamentary leader. Your Party currently has four MPs – Corbyn, Ayoub Khan, Shockat Adam and Zarah Sultana. Khan and Adam are also running as part of Corbyn’s slate – The Many – and are running to become public office holders on the CEC. Sultana is part of the Grassroots Left slate.
At Your Party’s founding conference in November, members opted for the collective leadership model, meaning the party will be led by a committee rather than a single leader. However, the question of how the party would be led in parliament was not addressed. In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg in December, Sultana said she would run to become the party’s parliamentary spokesperson. According to Grassroots Left’s website, the slate intends to elect a parliamentary convenor “to be the public spokesperson and whip” of the Your Party group of MPs.
However, Corbyn’s slate – The Many – believe that he is best placed to reunite Your Party’s electoral coalition and have therefore decided to elect him parliamentary leader should the slate win the CEC elections on 26 February. The party has been troubled by in-fighting and splits since it was first announced in July last year. A source close to Corbyn told the New Statesman: “Jeremy knows that the fate of Your Party rests on this election.” They added: “It will determine whether it grows as a mass, community-based party that can speak to millions of ordinary people, or becomes a battleground for every splinter group under the sun. The Many simply has to win for the party to survive.”
Announcing The Many earlier this month, Corbyn said he hoped to “get Your Party back on track”. Commenting after the announcement that he will become Your Party’s parliamentary leader if his slate is elected, Corbyn said: “I want Your Party to be part and parcel of our communities, organising day-in day-out with local people. That’s why I’m standing with The Many, united behind a shared political vision of a mass left party.”
Repeating a slogan he frequently used during his leadership of the Labour Party Corbyn said: “Together, we can get Your Party back to its original, popular, positive vision: to build a society for the many, not the few.”
Nominations for the CEC elections opened on 5 January. Members will elect a 16-person committee, of which six will form the officers group. This will include a chair, deputy chair, secretary, treasurer, political officer and spokesperson. Their roles will be decided internally after the election results are announced on 26 February. (The chair, deputy chair and spokesperson are expected to be the public facing political leaders of the party.)
None of these seven roles are open to sitting members of any national parliament. Within the wider CEC, there will be four public office holders, who can be sitting MPs.
Both of the party’s co-founders have unveiled their own slates for the CEC elections. Corbyn was originally included as a candidate for Grassroots Left. However, as the New Statesman revealed, he did not give permission for his name to be included on the slate. Sources close to Corbyn said he was “very upset” to have been included against his wishes.
The upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election will be held on 26 February, the same day as the CEC elections. As decisions on election candidates are to be be made by the CEC, Your Party will not field a candidate for Gorton and Denton.
Noor Jahan Begum, an independent councillor in Redbridge and one of The Many’s candidates for the Your Party leadership, said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s moral clarity and decades of steadfast, principled service have earned him huge support in those communities. The Many will elect him as our Leader in Parliament, providing a loud voice against austerity, racism and war in Westminster.”
[Further reading: Inside Labour’s plan to win Gorton and Denton]
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