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A source close to Jeremy Corbyn has said ‘Your Party’ will not survive unless his supporters win power within it, as voting opens today for members to elect the party’s leadership.
Members of the new party being founded by Corbyn, Independent Alliance MPs Ayoub Khan and Shockat Adam, and Zarah Sultana voted narrowly for a ‘collective leadership’ over a ‘single leader’ model during its founding conference in November.
With MPs barred from leading the party, which has been deeply divided since it began, Your Party will instead be led formally by a 16-member committee, including a chair and deputy chair who must be lay members.
But the contest has become a proxy for the battle between Corbyn and Sultana, who have clashed ever since the latter quit the Labour Party and joined the project last year. Two slates are battling it out: ‘The Many’, associated with the former Labour leader, and ‘Grassroots Left’, linked to Sultana.
If successful, Grassroots Left intend to elect a ‘parliamentary convenor’, expected to be Sultana. If The Many win more seats, they will elect him as parliamentary leader.
“Members have a choice,” a source close to Corbyn told PoliticsHome.
“They can vote to build a popular, mass vehicle that looks outwards. Or they can hand the party over to splinter groups that have spent the past six months attacking the most influential figure on the British left.
“There is only one way this party can survive: a victory for The Many.”
A source close to Sultana said: “Support for the Grassroots Left is growing by the day. Members have responded overwhelmingly to our positive plan to immediately recognise branches, give access to their data and stand Your Party candidates in the upcoming elections this May.
“We were also delighted to have received an endorsement from Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and Ken Loach’s ‘Platform for a Democratic Party’ over the weekend, as they too can see the stark difference in visions for the party. We urge everyone to vote early, and vote Grassroots Left.”
Internal elections for Your Party’s central executive committee will see voting start at 5pm today and close in two weeks.
Endorsements for candidates indicate that support for each slate among members is finely balanced, with Grassroots Left winning in some regions and The Many coming top in others.
“We see things as quite existential in terms of the survival and viability of the party as a relevant force in British politics,” one insider associated with the Corbyn wing of Your Party told PoliticsHome. “The outcome will be determined by turnout.”
Corbyn allies believe that if turnout is low in these elections, those who back Sultana – accused of representing a “federation of Trotskyist sects” – are more likely to win positions.
Those close to the former Labour leader say they are concerned that Muslim communities increasingly alienated by Labour, who represent a significant proportion of Your Party’s potential electoral base, would be put off from supporting the party if it comes under Sultana’s control. They say it would be left with little support as urban graduates are gravitating towards the Green Party.
It is also thought that the continued involvement of two MPs, Adam and Khan, could rest on the outcome of the elections, as Sultana and her supporters have been highly critical of the Independent Alliance MPs.
From the parliamentary grouping, Iqbal Mohamed and Adnan Hussain have both already quit Your Party over tensions between them and Sultana, including ill feeling after she described them as a “sexist boys’ club”.
Only Sultana has officially designated herself a Your Party MP. Corbyn, Adam and Khan are all still listed as Independents. A Your Party source said she made the change “unilaterally”, and the other MPs are understood to believe that, as the party is only currently being governed by an interim authority, they are not in a position to declare themselves as Your Party MPs.
Corbyn said: “A vote for The Many is a vote for a mass, inclusive, powerful campaigning force. We have an opportunity to build a genuinely mass party that unites our diverse communities on the issues that matter to us all.
“Remember why we are doing this: so that every child has enough food to eat, every person has a roof over their head, and everyone can live in peace. That has always been my absolute determination – and always will be.”
