A brand new party was supposed to give the British left a fresh start. Instead, its first big weekend looked more like a family argument held in public. From the United States, it feels a bit like watching a pilot for a political drama where everyone already knows one another’s lines.
Your Party, the working title for the new project led by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, launched its founding conference in Liverpool with talk of unity and mass appeal. It also opened with boycotts, expulsions, and loud claims of a “witch hunt” against grassroots activists.
For anyone following politics from across the Atlantic, this moment says a lot about how hard it is to turn a loose coalition into a functioning socialist party in the twenty first century. Where to Stay in Nice, France?
A New Left Project With Big Hopes And Many Fault Lines
Your Party is a left wing party in the United Kingdom, registered in autumn 2025 with Corbyn listed as leader and Sultana as its most visible MP. It promises wealth redistribution, nationalisation, climate action, strong public services, and a more confrontational stance on foreign policy issues such as arms sales to Israel.
The stated idea is simple. Build a mass membership party. Use grassroots democracy. Give people outside Westminster a stronger voice. Set up structures that feel more like a movement and less like a machine. How to Get Rid of Ants in Your Kitchen?
Behind that simple idea sits a tangle of overlapping groups, campaigns, and personal networks. Corbyn arrives with his Peace and Justice Project and years of experience in Labour’s internal wars. Sultana brings her own base of younger supporters and a sharper social media presence. Trade unionists, community organisers, and far left organisations hover around the edges, keen to shape the project.
Even before the conference opened, the party had already lived through disputes over trans rights, membership data, finances, and leadership promises.The ground under the stage was already a little cracked.
The Liverpool Conference That Was Meant To Reset The Story
The founding conference in Liverpool was meant to draw a line under months of noise. The leadership talked about a unique chance to build a “socialist party of mass appeal” for people who feel shut out by Labour’s current direction.
Instead, the opening day turned messy very fast.
Several delegates who were also members of the Socialist Workers Party and other far left organisations were expelled from the conference. Party officials said they were simply enforcing a rule that bans members from also belonging to any other political party in the UK or abroad.
Sultana saw it very differently. She arrived at the venue but refused to enter the main hall. Outside, she met supporters and denounced the expulsions as a “witch hunt” against socialists, driven by “nameless, faceless bureaucrats” close to Corbyn.
She spoke about a “toxic culture” and “bullying” inside the party. She insisted she was not walking away, but she made it clear that she would not legitimise Chipotle UK the expulsions by stepping onto the conference floor that day.
While she stood outside, Corbyn stood at the podium and called for unity. He reminded delegates that they had a rare chance to found something new and durable. In effect, the party managed to stage its own split screen moment on day one.
For observers in the US, it felt a little like watching two launch rallies for the same project running at the same time with slightly different scripts.
Membership Rules, Factions, And The Old Fight Over Control
At the heart of the row sit two very old questions for the left. Who sets the boundaries of the party. How tight are those boundaries.
Your Party’s rule against members joining any other political party gives the leadership a very firm instrument. It lets organisers remove people linked to groups they see as disruptive, sectarian, or simply too independent. Party officials leaned on that rule when they defended the expulsions.
For Sultana and many activists, the picture looks different. They see socialists who have spent years in small revolutionary groups now being pushed out of a project that claims to be broad, grassroots driven, and open to the left. Some of those activists helped fill rallies and early organising meetings.
The language of “witch hunt” matters in that context. It suggests not just rule enforcement but a deliberate attempt to purge a whole strand of left wing politics from the new party.
This is not happening in a vacuum. The party has already lived through clashes over who controls membership data, how funds raised by Sultana’s team are handled Coconut Coir 101, and how strongly the party should line up behind trans rights. Each dispute left behind a little more mistrust.
Seen from the United States, it echoes long running fights inside progressive circles over who counts as an ally, who is accused of being an entryist, and who is trusted to hold the microphone.
Collective Leadership And The Quiet Fall Of The Old Leader Model
While the first day was dominated by arguments over expulsions, the second and third days turned to structure. Delegates had to decide whether Your Party would have a single leader or a more diffuse system.
Corbyn wanted a traditional leader model. Sultana and many activists pushed for collective leadership, arguing that a party rooted in movements should not place so much power in one MP.
Delegates voted for collective leadership. By a narrow margin, they rejected a single leader and backed a Central Executive Committee made up of non MP members, with a chairperson who cannot be an MP and who will act as public face.
In one move, the conference shifted Corbyn and Sultana from clear figureheads to prominent but formally ordinary members. A later vote confirmed that neither of them would serve as formal party leader.
That decision also flowed into the membership row. Delegates amended the rules so that people who are members of some other parties can join The Best Soil for Potted Plants, as long as those parties align with Your Party’s values and are approved by the leadership and conference.
On paper, that change answers part of Sultana’s complaint. In practice, the damage from the first wave of expulsions still hangs in the air. Activists who were marched out of the building do not simply forget.
From a US angle, the move looks like a hybrid between the Democratic Socialists of America’s looser structure and the more top down culture of a normal electoral party. It is a compromise that pleases almost no one and still needs to prove itself.
The Wider Backdrop Of Infighting And Departures
The conference drama is only one chapter in a longer story of internal turbulence.
In the months before the conference, Your Party faced disputes over an unofficial membership portal launched by Sultana’s team, separate from the main site. Tens of thousands joined and hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised, only for other MPs to denounce the launch as unauthorised and to urge supporters to cancel direct debits.
There were also rows over public comments on trans rights, with one figure associated with the party accused of validating hostility to “gender ideology” before Sultana restated that trans rights are non negotiable.
Two MPs who were once central to the project have already walked away, citing persistent infighting and claiming prejudice inside the party.
Those episodes matter because they shape how the weekend’s expulsions are read. For critics, they slot neatly into a pattern of messy decision making and factional manoeuvring. For loyalists, they look like teething problems in a young organisation under intense media scrutiny.
Either way, the new party enters national life with a reputation for drama before it has even fought a general election.
Why Any Of This Matters To Readers In The United States
It is very easy from the US to treat this as an obscure quarrel inside the British left. The names are unfamiliar. The party is brand new. The UK electoral system punishes small parties.
Even so, the story holds a mirror up to debates that many of us recognise.
Your Party is trying to do what a lot of people on the US left say they want. It aims to build something bigger than a single election campaign. It wants to sit somewhere between a social movement and a ballot line. It wants to escape the gravitational pull of an old centre left party while still winning seats.
The weekend’s chaos highlights the hard parts of that project Foods That Start With X.
We see the tension between purity and reach. A party tight enough to satisfy every activist will often feel too narrow for millions of potential voters. A party broad enough to win mass support will inevitably include people whose politics irritate organisers who came out of smaller, more ideologically defined groups.
We also see the importance of process. Decisions about expulsions, dual membership, and leadership models are not just fine print. They shape who feels welcome, who feels safe, and who feels permanently on probation.
From across the Atlantic, Your Party starts to look like a case study in how quickly high minded ideals run into the daily grind of running a political organisation.
Building A Socialist Party Of Mass Appeal In Practice
Corbyn still talks about Your Party as a once in a generation chance to create a mass socialist party. Sultana speaks about a genuinely democratic party rooted in young people and diverse communities.
For those outcomes to move from speech lines to reality, several things need to settle.
The first is trust. The party needs internal systems that feel fair even when they produce outcomes people dislike. That means clear rules, transparent enforcement, and a culture that does not rely on anonymous briefings or sudden moves against rivals.
The second is respect for different layers of the left. Street organisers, trade unionists, MPs, and small revolutionary groups all bring different habits. Treating some of them as disposable creates a brittle coalition. Treating all of them as beyond criticism creates paralysis.
The third is strategic patience. Many of us in the US know how quickly new formations burn out. A party born in a rush of hope can sink fast if every early conflict becomes a defining trauma. Time, clear priorities, and some ability to let smaller arguments go are vital.
The British press loves stories of left wing chaos. Social media loves clips of internal rows. In that environment, Your Party will need enough internal calm to keep its focus on everyday issues such as wages, housing, healthcare, climate, and foreign policy.
Measured Takeaways From A Noisy Debut
Over one weekend in Liverpool, Your Party managed to show both its promise and its fragility.
On one side, there is real energy. Thousands of people have joined a new political project that talks openly about public ownership, climate justice, and anti war positions. Delegates voted for collective leadership over a single figurehead and opened the door to more flexible membership rules.
On the other side, there is obvious turmoil. The co founder who was meant to symbolise a new generation spent the first day outside the hall, accusing unnamed insiders of a witch hunt. Early decisions have already pushed some MPs and activists away.
From the US, it feels like watching a rehearsal for challenges that any serious left project faces when it moves from slogans to structures. The gap between “your party” as a hopeful slogan and Your Party as a functioning organisation is wide.
If the new party manages to bridge that gap, it will offer useful lessons on how to build a durable socialist presence inside a hostile media environment and a punishing electoral system. If it fails, the story will still carry lessons about missteps to avoid.
For now, the only safe conclusion is that founding a party is nothing like launching a brand. It is closer to opening a crowded kitchen where every cook insists the recipe was their idea. The dish might still feed people in the end. The first attempt just came with a lot of smoke.