Anarchistcommunism.org || As we remarked back in 2019, commenting on Corbynism after Corbyn, “Electoralism is a bankrupt and debilitating strategy for the working class. Governments have little autonomy from the ruling class and the electoral farce is just a way to make us think we have some kind of power, distracting us from the real struggle. It is capitalism which determines how things pan out in the political sphere. Getting a progressive party into power can never achieve more than very minor reforms. And, given the situation for both the planet and the working class, it is imperative that change is fundamental and revolutionary; this means destroying capitalism and creating new economic, political, and social structures.”
Back then, after Corbyn’s defeat at the election, many of the Corbynistas hadn’t given up hope for the transformation of the Labour Party. They spent their time struggling in Constituency Labour Party branches to oust more Blairites and pushing for a more radical programme at Labour Party conferences.
When this failed, and Corbyn himself was given the bum’s rush from the Labour Party, some of them had to rethink, whilst others have remained inside Labour, despite that Party’s increasingly obvious anti-working class, pro-war, and racist nature. Some still maintained the illusion that they could radically change Labour, whilst others tacked to the right and fell in behind Starmer.
Corbyn was horrified when he was ejected from a Party where he had made his career for fifty years. He had refused to resign as Labour moved further and further to the right. His suspension and determination by the Starmer leadership that he would not be re-admitted, forced him to reluctantly stand as an independent four years later. Corbyn remains a firm supporter of old-style Labourism. One of his associates, John McDonnell, who remains inside Labour admitted in 2017 that “Jeremy Corbyn and I are the stabilisers of capitalism.” Corbyn’s role is to divert and sabotage any real attempt to counter capitalism by grassroots action by the working class. When he was Labour leader, he offered a package of mild reforms, whilst promising big business that they have nothing to fear. Whilst having a long record of supporting anti-militarist and nuclear disarmament initiatives, when he became leader he capitulated to the Labour right, and committed to NATO.
In July 2025, another suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana, announced that she would, with Jeremy Corbyn, “co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country.” Corbyn’s hand was forced by this, and after keeping schtum for some time after Sultana’s announcement, was forced to agree to the formation of the new party.
Many on the Labour left were expelled or resigned in disgust over the last few years. They are desperately seeking a new home, whilst being in the main still wedded to electoralist and reformist politics. Alongside this has been a widespread disgust for the increasingly open anti-working class nature of the Labour government.
This resulted in more than 850,000 applying for membership of this new party. This should not be underestimated. It indicates a willingness by a substantial number to look for an alternative. Whilst this is still framed within a social-democratic context, it nevertheless indicates a certain radicalisation of a sizeable number of people, which should be addressed by revolutionaries.
However, the ensuing few months have proven to be a fiasco for Your Party. The embarrassing mess around membership dues, with Sultana precipitately opening up a membership portal, and the ongoing internal war between the Corbyn circle and Sultana, has resulted in only 53,000 out of the initial figure of 850,000 actually becoming members. Many of those initially enthused by the appearance of Your Party are now reluctant to join, whilst Zack Polanski’s leadership victory within the Green Party, posing an alternative reformist and quasi-social-democratic alternative to Your Party, meant an increasing number have chosen to join the Greens and not Your Party. Also in the process, two of the originally six-strong group of suspended Labour MPs, organised as the Independent Alliance, have now walked out.
Corbyn is surrounded by people like Karie Murphy, (partner of ex-Unite boss Len McCluskey) and Corbyn’s own partner Laura Alvarez, who are determined that he be uncontested leader of the Your Party formation. Corbyn’s personal preference is for a single leader, himself.
As for Zarah Sultana, she is another career politician who came up through the old Labour career channels of the National Union of Students and Young Labour. She wanted to sit on the throne next to that of Corbyn, as ‘co-leader,’ as she explicitly made clear, with no reference as to whether the rank and file of Your Party thought that this was a good idea or not. We have now been subjected to egotistical hissy fits between the Corbyn clique and Sultana, which the ruling class media has gleefully seized upon.
This was all crowned by the recent Your Party national conference, which the Socialist Workers Party and Counterfire were banned from, and where Sultana refused to attend the first day, only to make a barnstorming and demagogic speech on the second day. Sultana poses as the champion of the Party rank and file. Sultana still wants to be co-leader, although the decision at conference to have a collective leadership goes against this. This body, the Central Executive Committee (CEC) will include a chair and a deputy chair. MPs are not allowed to stand for the chair and deputy chair roles on the CEC, but may stand for one of the public office roles, as will councillors and mayors. Elections to the CEC will finish by the end of February. Until then, the process will be stewarded by those MPs who are members of the Independent Alliance and Your Party – Corbyn, Shockat Adam and Ayoub Khan, but not Zarah Sultana, with a sortitioned committee of ordinary members.
As to the SWP and Counterfire, barred from the conference, this decision was made by the Corbyn clique, with no consultation with members in an undemocratic way. But for outfits like Counterfire and the SWP to bleat about lack of democracy, when we know the history of these groups, is a bit rich. Comrade Delta, anyone? The SWP think they can be a major player in this new party, when all previous evidence shows that they will attempt to control it and recruit to their own organisation. If this fails, and the returns aren’t worth their investment they will stay and wreck it if they can or just leave. This goes for the other Trot groups buzzing round YP like flies around a cowpat.
And indeed, that’s what conference looked like, an array of these various left groups, with little involvement from the 53,000 members. A thousand attended, but these were decided by sortition by the Corbyn clique (sortition being selection by lottery, where a random sample of people is chosen as “delegates”). Many motions put forward by branches were not even considered, or ruled out of order, and the Corbyn clique manipulated the conference.
Only around 20,000 members have taken the trouble to verify their membership, indicating a general unease, and of these only 6,000 actually voted online. Of those physically at the Conference, there was widespread disgruntlement that they had spent a lot of money on fares and accommodation but had little say on which direction YP is going.
All these shenanigans indicate that YP is a mess, and cannot even offer a serious mild reformist programme engaging with sections of the working class.
It is unlikely that YP will mobilise in the workplaces and neighbourhoods, increasingly engaged in internal warfare, manoeuvrings, and manipulation, and in obsession with electoralism. It will to some extent draw people involved in grassroots campaigns away from meaningful work, as happened with the previous Corbynmania.
As we continue to say, grassroots groups and campaigns should look towards common class interests and unity, and meaningful alliances and coalitions, based on self-organisation, autonomy, and the need to create new forms of social organisation. This is obviously a hard task, involving much work, but when we look at the car crash of YP, it must be seen as the only real alternative.
As Theodore Dezamy, early French communist, wrote in 1842, “Proletarians! It is to you that I address these reflections, to you who, a thousand times already, have been betrayed, sold, handed over, slandered, tortured and mocked by alleged saviours! If you again submit to the cult of individuals, expect to experience once more cruel and poignant illusions”.
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