04.12.2025

A party divided

No wonder Jeremy Corbyn personally thanked Karie Murphy in his conference speech: she delivered a masterclass in manipulation, says Carla Roberts. But it was Zarah Sultana who reigned supreme - her defiance should inspire members to fight back in the branches too

Your Party’s launch conference is likely to go down in history as one of the most undemocratic, stage-managed stitch-ups in working class history. Jeremy Corbyn’s right-hand woman, Karie Murphy, has outdone herself in micromanaging every single detail to make sure HQ stays firmly in control - at least on paper. However, while the very limited and atomised online voting led to some truly awful rules and formulations now having been agreed (see below), the mood in the ACC hall showed a very different picture. The line of security guards protecting the top table from the plebs symbolically reflected YP’s divide.

On many things, the most leftwing options won. And, had conference declared itself sovereign, set its own agenda and discussed its own motions and amendments, there is no doubt we would have walked it. It was a thoroughly leftwing event. Those lucky enough to be sortitioned to attend the two-day event showed very vocally that they disagree with the expulsions, the lack of democracy and the sidelining of the members and branches. There were many defiant speeches from the floor, cheered on loudly by those in the hall. This culminated on Sunday afternoon in the rousing speech by Zarah Sultana, who pulled no punches in criticising the leadership. She clearly sided with the membership and is now the unofficial spokesperson of the left.

It is now incumbent on the left to build on that sentiment. Yes, we should stand a joint slate for the elections to the central executive committee (CEC) in January/February, based on principled politics and demands for democracy. Crucially, we have to wage a fightback from below, in the branches. We should encourage comrades to build democratic caucuses, pass critical motions, defy the purge and mobilise the membership to rebel and start cohering nationally in YP. We also need to push for a reconstituted conference that can revisit some of the more dumber things agreed in Liverpool. It remains to be seen if the Socialist Unity Platform can play that role, but there certainly is a need for the left to organise seriously (more below).

Manipulations

Conference started even more undemocratically than many feared. The standing orders were not even put to the members - we were simply told they could not be changed or even challenged. A comrade from Counterfire was bundled off when she tried to challenge the agenda. Emergency motions were banned. Most amendments were ruled out of order or simply never published. Speakers were interrupted and the livestream cut off whenever speakers criticised the unelected leadership.

Conference itself had been downscaled rather dramatically - and had quietly been moved from the main ACC into the much smaller exhibition centre next door. No more than 1,500 attendees were present on either day - down from the 13,000 first promised. We suspect that number would have been even lower, had those traveling to Liverpool known in advance that voting would take place entirely online, by all ‘verified’ members – and surely often without ever listening to a single ‘debate’ (we use that phrase very loosely). As an aside, we have learned in the process that only 21,000 of the 54,000 YP members are ‘verified’ - ie, have clicked a particular button in their email after they applied to join. This number went up by about 1,500 after many realised that this was required to vote. Still, the number of those voting never rose above 10,000, which gives us a good indication of the real membership figures.

This tight control of conference and voting by atomised individuals at home could not stop some left choices, such as collective leadership, going through - but it also led to some truly terrible outcomes, the results of which were only announced on Monday:

• Your Party has now enshrined sortition as a method to choose future conference participants, in addition to some delegates from the branches, in a ratio “as defined or required by that conference’s remit” - we can just about imagine. It did not help that in the run-up to conference we were told by fellow socialists that sortition really is not all that bad and can be tweaked. Only 32.92% voted in favour of conference being made up by “delegates elected by the party branches, organised sections, affiliates or any combination thereof”. Another hotch-potch, but not quite as bad.
• However, to make matters worse, this decision almost does not matter, as the following ‘option’ also won: “Voting on matters at party conferences shall be open to all members through online voting systems, accessible throughout conference time.” A whopping 77.22% of members supported this. It is perhaps no surprise that those voting at home were in favour of that possibility continuing. Conference has therefore become almost entirely redundant.

The left has failed to explain why online OMOV voting is a bad idea. Even Sultana supported it for a while (though she seems to have changed her view). Doesn’t it give members who cannot attend a chance to be involved too? Kind of - but not really. Had only conference attendees been allowed to vote - and vote on the issues it had wanted - the results would no doubt have been entirely different. It would have pushed YP massively to the left. It would have enshrined democracy and accountability. Which is, of course, what the Corbyn clique desperately tried to avoid. Voting via mobile phone empowers those in charge, as has become abundantly clear over the weekend: they were able to decide what we were allowed to discuss and what options we were given.

Online voting

In our view, online voting of all members actually disempowers the branches - and therefore the membership as a whole. It is the branches that should be discussing motions, amendments and who to send to conference to represent them. That is real, active democracy, not sitting at home, clicking a button. As the votes were all taken hours and days after the discussion, people voted simply on what they read on their screens, without context, without hearing arguments for and against - and on formulations written by HQ. A travesty of democracy - and now enshrined in YP.

It is excellent that members opted to “explicitly signal YP is a socialist party” - only 19.74% voted against. There is, of course, no explanation of what ‘socialism’ means and Corbyn probably has something very different in mind than Marxists. Less positive is that members also voted to keep the formulation: “Your Party should be a mass party rooted in the broadest possible social alliance, with the working class at its heart.”

The two options given were either to “keep the whole sentence” (vote yes) or delete the words, “mass” and “broadest possible social alliance” (vote no). As if you could not build a mass party based on the working class alone! Another entirely manipulated vote. It is no surprise that ‘yes’ won with 67.9% of the vote, given the choices.

Amendments

These were all part of the so-called ‘roadmap amendments’, formulated and pre-chosen by HQ - and members were not allowed to amend them. Before conference, we were able to submit our own amendments, for a short window of 36 hours - and then had another 36 hours to find other members to endorse them, so they could become ‘priority amendments’. Over 500 were submitted - but not even 100 were published. Most amendments were either disqualified, often without any reason given, but most of them just sat there as ‘drafts’ (they still do!). The ones that were allowed through by HQ speak volumes. Three examples will suffice:

• The Socialist Unity Platform submitted over a dozen amendments, based on the Sheffield Demands.¹ Two of them made it through, including one stating that “MPs and all public officeholders should receive no more than the average wage of a skilled worker, with the rest being donated to the party.” It quickly received hundreds of endorsements. A similar amendment, submitted by the Democratic Socialists (DSYP), was ruled out of order because it was replicating the SUP one. Then, after many hours, the SUP amendment was disqualified because of a minor cut-and-paste error in the text! But the DSYP one was never reinstated, despite both the SUP and DSYP protesting before and at conference.

  This was no mistake or oversight either, because the same trick was repeated once more after somebody at HQ clicked the wrong button and wiped out all endorsements and voting had to be restarted. Had there been no minor error in the text, the amendments would not have made it past the ‘draft’ stage.

• A number of amendments were submitted to lower the threshold needed to recall MPs and councillors, including by the SUP. But only one amendment on the issue of ‘recall’ was allowed through (and was subsequently voted through) - about local officers. The principle of the amendment is right - it should be done by a simple majority in the branches. The problem is that a number of amendments that called for the same vis-à-vis “public office holders” were not even allowed to go through. So, in order to recall a councillor or an MP, this now requires “40% of all local members to sign a recall petition” - given a largely passive membership almost impossible.
• Interestingly, two harmless amendments on a ‘people’s budget’ moved by the Socialist Party in England and Wales made it to the conference floor, despite the fact that they received far fewer endorsements than many others. HQ does not seem to have a problem with SPEW at the moment - but that would probably change rather quickly if they started campaigning on something more radical than their ongoing and increasingly bizarre emphasis on YP having a federal structure, with special privileges for the trade union bureaucracy (ie, a Labour Party mark two).

Collective leadership

The narrow vote in favour of “collective leadership” (51.6%) instead of the strong leadership model (48.4%) is excellent - communists definitely favour governance by equals, without anointed kings or queens. That does not mean there will not be any leaders on such a collective body. Lenin was the de facto leader of the Bolsheviks through his moral authority, not because he was elected as The Leader.

But we should be clear that this is no unqualified victory for the left, as some believe. Yes, HQ would no doubt have preferred the other option. However, if Corbyn and co really could not live with collective leadership, they would simply not have tabled it. Which is, of course, what they did with all the amendments that they really did not approve of.

It looks to us like a rather blatant attempt to stop the ‘dual leadership’ model going forward that Zarah Sultana has been campaigning on. Neither Corbyn nor Sultana can now officially be crowned The Leader of YP or even serve on the officers’ group, as MPs are barred from those positions. However, that affects both of them disproportionally, which is why this option was allowed through: Yes, Sultana’s role has massively increased in recent months. But this is still King Corbyn’s show, whether he is crowned or not. Despite his reputation taking a hell of a battering among YP members, the same cannot be said about his role nationally - YP is still known as ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s party’. His name continues to carry a lot of weight.

Many on the left are now pinning their hopes on the elections for the new CEC, which start in January. However, there is very little chance that these will be organised by HQ any more fairly than at conference. HQ will continue to manipulate, cheat and deceive members, just like they have done in the last few months. It does not need to miscount votes, as it has plenty of other tools in its arsenal:

• For example, we note that the ‘interim members rules’ contain this little one: “Members must declare that they have no pending or past legal issues (criminal, civil or regulatory) that could cause reputational or financial harm to the party.”²

  Not convictions - but “issues”. That kind of vagueness could easily be used against Sultana in the ongoing drama over her decision to launch a unilateral membership portal on September 18. As director of MOU Ltd, she is at the heart of the Information Commissioner’s Office investigation into a possible “misuse” of data (thanks to the Corbyn clique reporting her). They might not dare expel her after what happened at the weekend - that could easily lead to YP imploding. But perhaps they will stop her from running for the CEC. We hear that HQ is seriously looking at both options.

• Also, we should note that the election for the 16 ‘ordinary’ places on the CEC will now take place by region, with each getting (roughly) two seats. This will make it a lot harder for the left to argue for a national political alternative.
• There are four seats reserved for “public office holders” (MPs, councillors, mayors), four for representatives from “organised sections” and one each from Wales and Scotland - all in the attempt to favour rightwingers loyal to HQ.
• Add to that the fact that the CEC will be elected via online OMOV voting, which favours big names and celebrities, so we might possibly get a CEC stuffed with Corbynites (if they can find any after this weekend).

Despite all these limitations, we do, of course, favour collective leadership in general. But we should have no illusions that it will be easy for the left to control it.

Witch-hunter general

It is positive that Sultana threw her weight behind collective leadership, once she knew that co-leadership was not on the cards. A smart move, which made her even more popular on the left, especially as there is some chance that she might actually have won in a straight leadership contest. She has gone for the more democratic option. Plus, although she used to call for online votes on everything, including the leadership, it seems she has become aware of how easily it can be manipulated.

Momentum

The Corbyn clique clearly takes inspiration from Momentum. When the latter’s membership started to organise in branches and regions and increasingly challenged the misleadership of Jon Lansman, he used an email signed by Corbyn to manipulate Momentum members into voting to abolish all democratic structures - the beginning of the end of that particular bureaucratic monstrosity. An enforced constitution also banned from Momentum membership anybody who had been expelled by the Labour Party as part of the witch-hunt against Corbyn and his supporters.

Last weekend unfortunately showed that Corbyn still has not learned any lessons from his defeat as Labour leader. If one was very favourable to him, one could argue that it was because of his political isolation on Labour’s national executive committee that he ended up, perhaps reluctantly, bowing to the right, accepting the anti-Semitism smear campaign, watching silently, as his general secretary, Jennie Formby, threw many of his own supporters, including close personal friends, to the wolves. Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Graham Bash and many other Corbyn supporters were publicly smeared, suspended and expelled. The right was admittedly very strong and benefited from the active support of the bourgeois media and the pro-Zionist lobby.

But the same really cannot be said of Your Party. There is no pressure from the right that could be used to justify the fact that, on the eve of conference, a number of leading members of the Socialist Workers Party were expelled. No valid reason why the press pass of Counterfire leader John Rees was withdrawn or why his comrade, Michael Lavalette, was not allowed to go into conference, unlike other councillors who were, despite not being sortitioned either (both were eventually waved in by King Jeremy).

There is no possible excuse this time around. The victim of one of the biggest witch-hunts in British history has become the witch-hunter general. The mind boggles. As a fig leaf, Karie Murphy quickly made up a set of “interim membership rules”,³ which were published on YP’s website on the Friday before conference. Under point 4, “Exclusive membership”, we read that “members may not be a member of any other national political party in the UK or abroad”.

These expulsions were no mistake, as some naives seem to think: after all, didn’t Jeremy Corbyn tell reporters in Liverpool that they were only expelled because “the SWP is registered with the electoral commission, therefore it is another party”? And didn’t it turn out that this is untrue? It hardly matters if Corbyn was fibbing or if he really did not know better. SWP comrades have confirmed that they remain expelled.

The Corbyn clique has picked on the easiest victim first: the SWP remains widely loathed - and not just because of the cover-up of the rape allegations against ‘comrade Delta’. No doubt, the plan was that it would soon be followed out the door by many others. Perhaps Counterfire is next on the list, and probably the CPGB. Followed by anybody else who speaks up and causes problems.

However, the mood at conference clearly showed that the membership reject any kind of purge. But this does not mean that HQ will not try to conduct one. It is important that members and branches now speak out loudly against the expulsions - and refuse to implement them, as comrades in Sheffield have just done. The left must continue its fight for Your Party to become a party of the whole working class - which, needless to say, must encompass the whole left too. We need real dual membership.

The SUP’s amendment on the issue read: “All left groups, large and small, should be positively welcomed into the party. Members should have full rights to organise openly into tendencies or platforms, permanent or temporary, and advocate publicly for political positions, even if they differ from the current majority.” Of course, the amendment was never allowed to go to conference.

Dual membership

The ‘debate’ around the issue of dual membership was, perhaps, the most dishonest of the whole conference. Members were only able to choose between either banning dual membership outright (option B) or allowing the newly elected CEC to draw up a white list of organisations, “where they have been approved by the CEC as aligning with the party’s values, to include those with whom the party cooperates electorally. The approved list shall be subject to ongoing CEC review and annual ratification by national conference” (option A).

Option A won with 69.2% of the vote. As with all other votes, there was no method to abstain or choose ‘neither’. No amendments to these two options were permitted either, despite the fact that the feedback from the regional assemblies clearly showed that many do not agree with either formulation. Members ended up voting for option A because they wanted to show their opposition to expulsions.

It was rather entertaining to see the chair scrambling around to get members to speak in support of the dreadful option B. They eventually found the infamous ‘Kika from Cambridge’, who had been kicked out of the WhatsApp group of the tame YP Connections Network a few months ago for witch-hunting leftwingers and, as it turns out, being in the group under false pretences - she was never elected to represent Cambridge YP in the network and even stopped the group there from holding such an election, probably because she knew she would not win. She has since been appointed by HQ to run some facilitator training sessions and is probably hoping to get onto the CEC (by mentioning her here we hope to prevent that).

We should not think for a moment that this this rule on dual membership is mainly aimed at members of the Green Party, Labour or, for that matter, rightwing parties. There are plenty of rules already requiring members to support Your Party’s programme, rules and standing orders. No, we have now seen the evidence that this is, very clearly, for the purpose of getting rid of the “Marxist sects”, as Karie Murphy calls them. They are not respectable enough for the kind of party the Corbyn clique wants to run. And they probably hope to get rid of a large block of members voting the ‘wrong’ way. Corbyn is happy enough to stand next to the SWP’s Lewis Nielsen as part of the We Demand Change campaign (in fact he did so two days before he expelled him), to let John Rees organise the troops, so he can march in front of a banner of the Stop the War Coalition, and to brush up his anti-racist credentials by speaking at events organised by the SWP’s front, Stand Up to Racism. But he has once again been convinced by those around him to do the unprincipled, shameful thing.

This is not just a politically appalling decision that will increasingly take the shine from Saint Jeremy: it is also short-sighted. After all, for somebody so focused on electoral work, Corbyn must be aware that Your Party requires a serious number of foot soldiers to deliver leaflets, canvass, run street stalls.

SUP

Considering the bureaucratic shenanigans and the fear of much of the organised left at being labelled ‘wreckers’, it is perhaps no surprise that, when it came to the ratification of the four amended conference documents, no joint voting advice could be agreed upon by the groups in Socialist Unity Platform.

At first, it looked like SUP would ask supporters to reject the constitution at least. But then Zarah Sultana’s husband, Craig Lloyd, started lobbying groups to vote in favour of it - allegedly because of a rumour that Corbyn had told his supporters to vote against the constitution. A bizarre and untrue story, based on what looks like a single tweet by a Corbyn loyalist. Amazingly, this fake story, coupled with Sultana’s advice, spooked enough organisations to actively support the constitution. Groups like the Democratic Socialists (DYSP) changed their advice mid-election and we must admit that the CPGB’s Jack Conrad too was (very briefly) convinced to recommend a vote in favour of the document.

And so a final opportunity to show at least some symbolic resistance to the way conference was stitched up was unfortunately lost. Much of the left ended up voting in favour of a constitution that enshrines a witch-hunt and can easily be used against them too. Considering that only 6,941 people voted on the constitution, the left could have delivered an embarrassing blow to the leadership. Instead, the result of 90.28% in favour would make Nicolae Ceaușescu blush.

It remains to be seen if SUP will exist beyond conference. It organised a very good fringe event on the Saturday, with a rousing final event.⁴ It played an excellent role in the run-up to conference, bringing diverse political groups together on the basis of their support for the Sheffield Demands,⁵ which call for democracy and openness in Your Party. They spread like a wildfire and were discussed up and down the country, in the branches and the regional assemblies. Some of the demands won:

• A collective leadership, with the CEC electing officers from among its numbers.
• HQ deleted a clause demanding ‘confidentiality’ (though that still features in the ‘interim membership rules’).
• Membership is now open to anyone who lives in the UK and no longer excludes migrants and refugees who do not hold residents’ rights.
• Branches are no longer forced to organise local assemblies, which have been entirely downgraded. There is no longer any suggestion that the assemblies should be able to initiate or decide on the party’s policies or even its candidates, as proposed in the first set of documents. Local community organising structures “shall be defined and run by the local parties”.
• Branches can now also choose not to organise along constituency lines.

Clearly, HQ was worried about SUP and paid close attention. When SUP proposed an emergency motion calling on conference to elect a small group of ‘returning officers’ to take the CEC election out of the hands of the Corbyn clique, they came up with their own ‘Members’ Oversight Committee’: Five YP members, chosen by sortition, are now to “act as caretakers, executing the democratic wishes of the party, as voted on by members in the founding conference”, Of course, they will not do that - Karie Murphy will stay firmly in charge.

There certainly is a need and a space within Your Party to cohere and organise the left: for example, in the run-up to the CEC elections, but also in cohering the much-needed fightback below.

Democratic Bloc

In this context, we should report that the centrist Democratic Bloc of former Momentum vice-chair Mish Rahman walked out of the SUP over the conference weekend. Its official reason was a rather tame tweet by Max Shanly (responsible for chairing SUP meetings) on the question of dual membership. As comrade Shanly quite rightly outlined, the winning option was almost identical to what DB had initially proposed: “It is literally lifted direct from your own proposals! It’s on your website!!!”⁶ If anything, it is even worse than what the YP constitution now states, because it demands that ‘approved parties’ also have to “share their books with the new party’s NPC - so that we can understand the size of their membership, their finances, their GDPR compliance and their disciplinary procedures.”⁷

That tweet was just the excuse the DB was looking for. Its departure is no great loss - quite the opposite. It had played the role of leading the rightwing guard in SUP. In order to make it seem like it was the main democratic opposition, it stopped SUP initiatives from going forward and, crucially, led the campaign against SUP presenting an emergency motion in Liverpool, which was calling for a reconstituted conference and the election of an emergency leadership.

DB was not the only group worried about an active rebellion being seen as “wrecking the process”, but it was certainly the best at convincing others that the SUP should stick to playing by the rules. The last SUP organising meeting before conference managed to turn this around again, with a small majority voting that SUP should at least support the motion that Counterfire and the SWP were planning on moving (but were not able to). But, by this time, it was too late to start cohering supporters or indeed convincing those in Liverpool to wage a proper fightback.

In reality, the left now has a year to turn some of the most stupid and undemocratic conference decisions around - that is how long it will be that changes to the constitution and standing orders will only require a simple majority: after that, a “two thirds super majority.” So, for a start, we need to campaign for a reconstituted conference within those 12 months.

The left has certainly lost a battle this weekend - we were never going to win conference by sticking to ‘legal’ routes, as they were almost entirely closed down by the unelected leadership. The turnout in Liverpool showed that we probably could have won, as a majority of participants were clearly from the radical left wing of the party. And we will probably lose some more battles: for example, when it comes to the CEC.

But, if we learn some lessons about what went wrong, we might yet win the war.

No purge in Your Party!

Resolution agreed by the December 2 Sheffield YP branch meeting

This branch notes:

1. We welcome that Your Party was officially launched on November 29-30 as a “socialist” party with “the working class at its heart”. However, there were serious democratic deficits, including the fact that members were presented with limited choices, with hundreds of amendments having been ruled out of order or never even published.

2. This was particularly problematic on the question of YP membership requirements, where members could only choose between two options:

• Option A - Dual membership with aligned allied parties: Members shall be permitted to hold membership in other national political parties, where they have been approved by the CEC as aligning with the party’s values, to include those with whom the party cooperates electorally. The approved list shall be subject to ongoing CEC review and annual ratification by national conference.
• Option B - No dual membership: Members may not hold membership in any other national political party.

3. Many members voted for Option A, because they oppose expulsions and want to build a party of the whole left. But, contrary to its title, it does not allow for “dual membership” in any real sense of the word. Groups have to be added to an ‘approved list’. They cannot even do so until the CEC has been elected in February/March.

4. No amendments to these two options were permitted, despite the fact that the feedback from the regional assemblies showed that many do not agree with either formulation.

5. A number of prominent members of the Socialist Workers Party have been expelled from Your Party on the eve of YP launch conference, soon after new ‘interim membership rules’ were added to the website. Jeremy Corbyn told reporters in Liverpool that the expulsions were down to the fact that “the Socialist Workers Party is registered with the electoral commission, therefore it is another party”. Despite the fact that this is incorrect, SWP members remain expelled.

This branch believes:

6. As we have outlined in the Sheffield Demands, we believe that “all left groups, large and small, should be positively welcomed into the party. Members should have full rights to organise openly into tendencies or platforms, permanent or temporary, and advocate publicly for political positions, even if they differ from the current majority.”

7. Witch-hunts and purges have a habit of quickly spiralling out of control, as we have seen in Momentum and the Labour Party. We fear that members of other parties could soon be expelled and excluded too.

This branch resolves:

8. We will continue to welcome members of the SWP and all other socialist organisations to fully participate in our branch, on all levels.

9. We demand the immediate reinstatement of all expelled members and will actively campaign to overturn this ban.

1. dsyp.org/sup.↩︎

2. www.yourparty.uk/rules.↩︎

3. Ibid.↩︎

4. The main video is here (more are being processed this week): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp4tCCfJcjA.↩︎

5. docs.google.com/document/d/1bMMvEv-tt.↩︎

6. x.com/maxshanly/status/1994451068797751720.↩︎

7. .www.dembloc.com/party#party-building.↩︎