Your Party co-founder Zarah Sultana at its inaugural conference last November. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
A row has erupted in Your Party after it emerged that several members have been prevented from standing in its upcoming Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections. Zarah Sultana – one of the party’s co-founders – described the barring of candidates “on the eve of the CEC elections” as “witch-hunts”. Sources close to Your Party have denied that this is the case.
Nominations for the CEC elections closed on Friday (16 January), with the endorsement period – in which candidates are required to reach a certain number of seconders – opening this morning (21 January). Both Sultana and her co-founder, Jeremy Corbyn, unveiled their own slate of candidates. Sultana backed “Grassroots Left” with Corbyn releasing his own list – “The Many” – on Friday. Corbyn was initially included in Sultana’s slate as a candidate. However, the New Statesman later revealed that this had been done against Corbyn’s wishes.
On Tuesday (20 January), it emerged that several members hoping to stand in the upcoming election had been informed by Your Party that they were ineligible. Ian Spencer, who was planning to run as a member of Grassroots Left, was told he could not do so as he was a member of another party. In a post on X from March 2024, Spencer said he had joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, though he denies being a member of another party. Spencer claims he was not approached by Your Party to clarify this. (On the morning of Wednesday 21 January, Spencer was reinstated.)
Speaking to the New Statesman, a source close to the Grassroots Left slate described the incident as a “fuck-up”. Other candidates, including Dave Nellist, a former Labour MP and long-standing supporter of the Militant tendency, Ian Drummond, a Your Party member, and Mushin Manir, a Unite organiser, have also been barred. (Nellist and Manir are members of the Socialist Party while Drummond has said he does not hold another party membership.)
New year, new read. Save 40% off an annual subscription this January.
In an appeal to the Your Party treasurer, Manir said he would not be resigning his membership of the Socialist Party – “I shouldn’t have to.” He added: “By blocking my nomination before a single vote is cast, you are acting like a management HR department, not a workers’ party.”
A source close to Your Party said that all members have the right to appeal, where they can show they’re not members of another political party. Party rules state that in order to sign up to Your Party, all members must state they are not a member of another. Candidates declare the same. Where this rule is broken, they are not eligible to stand. Both Sultana’s Grassroots Left slate and Corbyn’s The Many called for those candidates who had been ruled ineligible to be reinstated.
The point of contention relates to a topic that was hotly debated at the party’s conference in November: whether members of Your Party should be allowed to hold dual membership with another existing party. Members voted to allow this, subject to the discretion of the CEC at conference in November. However, the CEC has yet to be elected, so no party has been listed as one in which Your Party members are permitted to hold dual-membership. In effect, this means that members and candidates for election are not allowed to hold membership of any other party.
Until Your Party’s CEC is elected on 26 February and a decision on which parties are permitted for dual membership is made, this contested question is unlikely to dissipate.
[Further reading: Inside the Labour factions pressuring Starmer to rejoin Europe]