12.03.2026

Karie Murphy and Len McCluskey: she is the power behind the throne

Corbyn’s suffocating regime

Everything was factionally choreographed. All of them knew what was going to happen and how they were supposed to vote. That is how The Many fights the left. Appeals for ‘unity’, ‘reconciliation’ or, god help us, ‘away days’ are beyond useless, says Carla Roberts

In these challenging times, it can be rather amusing to read the Daily Mail’s increasingly desperate attempts to “stop the Green menace” (it has a campaign logo and everything). On March 10, it roped in George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn to conjure-up a “hard-left election pact”. Apparently, according to “its leading expert”, a Polanski-Corbyn-Galloway deal could inflict “very substantial” losses on Labour in May’s election. Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain gleefully reposted the article on X.

This story has more than a hint of shit stirring about it, as anybody who has been paying any attention to what is going on the left can attest - obviously the Mail’s “leading expert” is clearly not amongst them. Leaving aside the fact that there is absolutely no reason why the Greens would throw in their lot with the miniscule and Stalinoid WPB, Your Party is also in no position to field candidates in May - or, to be more precise, it does not want to, as the various reports from the first ‘proper’ meeting of Your Party’s central executive committee (March 8) show.¹ Just like it does not want the branches to function (more on that below).

I say ‘proper’ meeting - it lasted a mere two hours and 20 minutes, including breaks. Unsurprisingly, the officers’ group is now made up entirely of Corbyn loyalists. Some had expected Corbyn to throw a little bone to independents like Sam Gorst and Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi. But no. Even the most naive must have noticed by now that any appeals for ‘unity’, ‘reconciliation’ or, god help us, ‘away days’ are beyond pointless. The only way for there to be ‘peace’ on the CEC is a total surrender by the left. Those who suggest that the Grassroots Left should now disband might like to know that The Many acted as a choreographed faction, where everybody knew what was going to happen and how they were supposed to vote: against everything the GL put forward, for a start.

The Corbyn clique presented a whole whack of motions - at 8pm and 11pm on the night before the CEC meeting. Most things fell off the agenda, as they were supposed to, including ‘branch formation’, which was put as the last item.

Jeremy Corbyn might not have been there in person (he was on Eurostar), but it is his right-hand woman, Karie Murphy, who is in charge of Your Party anyway. She was certainly there and actively. Just like at the first introductory meeting the week before, it was she who gave the key reports (verbally, via Zoom).

None of the amendments feverishly produced by GL CEC members and supporters in the few hours between the email and the meeting were distributed to CEC members, and not even printed out. They were shown on a screen, in tiny writing. GL CEC were allowed a whole 30 seconds to read out and explain each amendment. No debate was allowed, and only after protests did chair Jennifer Forbes ask for ‘speeches against’.

Pretty much every single vote went, as expected, 14 to 9. Monique Mosley, one of the two CEC members from Yorkshire, did not attend the meeting - but the ‘independent’ Sam Gorst voted almost exclusively with Corbyn’s leadership faction. As a rather amusing aside, a few days before, on March 4, he posted this excruciating message on X alongside a video of Jeremy Corbyn: “This is my leader. The only leader the world needs right now. He inspired me into politics in 2015 and over a decade later inspires me to do everything I can to make our communities and our world better places.”²

To no avail - he was snubbed by the dear leader, whose faction voted against Gorst and for Cassie Bellingham as membership officer. Fadel Takrouri, now YP treasurer, was not actually elected to the CEC - he replaces his running mate in the West Midlands, Sue Moffat, who could not take up her post because of “family illness”. Takrouri has the added benefit of being a far more reliable ally of Karie Murphy.

Voting down

Forbes did not even allow a date to be set for the next meeting and no decision was made on how often the CEC should meet. Earlier on, The Many had voted down the GL proposal for monthly all-day meetings, plus a weekly two-hour Zoom meeting. The intention is clear: every single important decision - on staffing, finances, strategy - will now be made by the officers’ group, very much away from full CEC scrutiny. This became clear during a (brief) discussion on a question raised by Naomi Wimborne Idrissi. She writes in her report:

I raised a point about party finances, noting that the electoral commission’s 4th quarter report on donations to political parties showed £670k for Your Party, representing transfers from MOU limited. I asked for the CEC to approve further substantial transfers which are available from MOU and desperately needed to fund local branch activities. This discussion was shut down and referred to the officer group.

In fact, we hear that Jenn Forbes only noticed after a couple of minutes that, “with Zarah in the room, there is a clear conflict of interest”, so the issue should be one of many referred to the officers’ group. There is a good chance she noticed that, thanks to one of a number of text messages she seems to have received from one Karie Murphy. There were a number of such instances, we hear.

Murphy remains the key player in Your Party and once again took an active role in the CEC meeting. The other staffer present online was press officer Angus Satow. Artin Giles and Alex Nunns were in the room too. The meeting was told that £16,000 a month is paid by YP on staffing, which also pays out another £7,000 a month for staff “seconded” from the Peace and Justice Project. But we do not know - and the CEC was not told - how many people are actually employed by YP and who they are. None of our business, right? Wrong. Even trade unions publish the names of their key employees.

These are, of course, some of the people who have been running Your Party so wonderfully for the last eight months (and its predecessor organisations for two years before that) - and now they will do so together with the officers’ group. CEC members, incidentally, are not officially ‘allowed’ to report which staffers were present at the meeting, but these things have a way of getting out.

Karie Murphy certainly leaked her side of the story - naturally to the bourgeois press first, as she always does, to announce the happy news that “Jeremy Corbyn has officially become parliamentary leader of Your Party. Fourteen members voted to appoint Corbyn parliamentary leader, with zero against.”³ No need for PoliticsHome to mention that the nine GL supporters on the CEC abstained (they should have voted against, in our view). Or that this is a position which does not actually exist in the constitution.

There might or might not have been a breach of the YP constitution, which states that “none of the officers may be members of any national parliament”.⁴ The plan is for Corbyn to “not be an officer, but [he] will, subject to ratification by members, be invited to attend and vote at OG meetings ex officio, in line with clause 3b.v of the constitution”, according to The Many’s CEC motion on the matter. It is certainly sneaky, but it is hardly the worst thing the Corbyn clique has done. Any such issues which might hinder the Corbyn clique doing exactly what they want can now be ironed out by email referendum - you are guaranteed to get the answer you want. It is the most undemocratic way to involve the members and merely gives the illusion of democracy.

Comrade Wimborne-Idrissi incidentally explained in a meeting organised by YP Connections Network that she had presented an amendment to do away with the position of parliamentary leader altogether⁵ - quite right too. But, like all other amendments, it was voted down. Hannah Hawkins at one stage admitted loudly that she “couldn’t hear a word” when an amendment was read out - but still voted against it, naturally.

The perhaps most bizarre example of this automatic block voting was over a GL amendment that sought to specify that “any independent community groups we work with across the regions and nations in May 2025 [sic] should have explicitly socialist principles reflected in their founding documents or constitution, on the basis that Your Party is an inherently socialist party”. A socialist party wanting to collaborate with socialist groups - heavens, what a bizarre thing to suggest. Of course, The Many voted it down: “A CEC member spoke against the amendment, characterising it as a form of ‘purity testing’”, as the GL report explains.

Another one is the ‘the mysterious case of the membership officer’, as we shall call it. There were two versions of a document describing the roles of the officers’ group - one sent at 8pm and one sent at 11pm on March 7. The only difference in them is the description of the role of the membership officer. This bit was taken out of the second version: “Promote and maintain effective communication and engagement with diverse communities, including BAME groups, smaller local organisations, and underrepresented members, to ensure inclusive participation in party activities.”

No reason was given for the deletion, even when GL members asked. GL members proposed via an amendment that this sentence is reinserted. But even that was, somewhat bizarrely, voted down. Which has led to members up and down the country scratching their heads, wondering what it is in that harmless, bog-standard formulation that Karie Murphy suddenly disliked. It does not mean very much as it is and Bellingham could have simply not implemented it. Answers on a postcard, please.

Election ‘strategy’

HQ boasts in an email to members on March 11 that the CEC agreed “a targeted seats strategy, alongside supporting community independent groups aligned with our values. We aim to publish the full process next week - there’s no time to waste!” The Many presented a motion to the CEC with a list of 22 pre-approved “local community groups”, whose candidates it will endorse - including some expected ones (Arise in Harrow, Islington and Liverpool Independents), but also less obvious groups like Newton-le-Willows Independents and Redbridge Matters (in addition, bizarrely, to Redbridge and Ilford Independents).

If you just read The Many’s motion on ‘electoral strategy’, it also looks as if individual YP members are able to put themselves forward and, after some basic checks, could stand under the YP banner. There is even an election timetable, which shows you can apply from March 15.

But this is not quite so. For a start, potential candidates will have to pay a mysterious and unspecified “admin fee”. And we hear that, during the ‘discussion’ on this item, various CEC members of the leadership faction explained, repeatedly, that all YP branches would also have to be set up as “accounting units in accordance with the requirements of the electoral commission” - for this election and beyond. Interestingly, the electoral commission does not actually require such units - a national party can choose to register as a whole unit, allowing branches to stand under the party’s banner. But that is not what HQ wants. Naturally, it is now impossible to do so before the deadline to register for the May elections - that kind of bureaucracy takes time.

To make things more complicated, in order for candidates to be approved, says the timetable, they will have to attend “local member selection meetings”, which take place “between 28-30 March”. But hold on: “official branches” don’t really exist unless they become “accounting units”. So how on earth could these meetings take place, in two weeks’ time? You get the drift. It is beyond Kafkaesque.

The reason that there are not any ‘official’ branches yet is, of course, because HQ does not want them. Even branches set up by trusted Corbyn loyalists bear the potential danger of becoming ‘democratic’ - and might even get a bit pesky and, say, vote on motions critical of the leadership. That is the kind of branch that the Corbyn clique absolutely wants to avoid. Which is, of course, why they put branches as the last item on the CEC’s agenda (it was supposed to fall off the agenda) - and there was no actual written proposal on how they could be recognised. Add to that the ridiculous constitutional requirement that ‘inaugural branch meetings’ will have to be attended by 20% of all local members - an utter impossibility, thanks to the way HQ has been alienating members - and it is clear that this is no oversight. HQ does not want branches - not active ones anyway.

There might be occasional ‘assemblies’ and ‘community organising units’ doing this or that and they might even be called ‘branches’ - that is all part and parcel of the Corbyn clique’s strategy to make YP into another version of Momentum or Podemos, with members’ involvement reduced to email referendums and posing for photographs at ‘conferences’ that are not allowed to vote on anything.

Where now?

What remains of the GL and the proto-branches, is, to put it mildly, very politically diverse. The left needs transparency and openness, but it also needs to discuss what went wrong and why - and on what kind of political programme it needs. The tight grip exercised by the Corbyn clique also begs the question of what role GL comrades on the CEC can and should play.

For a start, we think they should start going on the offensive. Of course, it is a good idea to come with a set of amendments to the leadership faction’s proposals, but comrades should consider presenting their own motions on various issues too - crucially, on the question of branch recognition and holding another conference quickly. Until November 2026, everything voted through at the stage-managed launch conference can be changed by a simple majority, including constitutional matters. After that, an undemocratic ‘super majority’ of two thirds is required, which will be near impossible. HQ will now want to avoid calling another conference any time soon, we suspect. GL should publish these motions beforehand, so that members can see what our representatives are doing.

It would also be good if the CEC members organise public meetings, where they do not just inform members as to what really went on at CEC meetings, but also discuss the next steps.

Ignore agenda

We believe that GL CEC members should simply ignore appeals for confidentiality. They only serve the bureaucracy and stop the membership from knowing what is really going on. Most will only see the official reports produced by the leadership faction, which will not explain how undemocratic things are. Members should be able to see - in detail - what was discussed in the meetings of the leadership, who argued for what and who voted how. Agendas, motions - everything - should be out in the open. Our CEC members have produced a good and detailed report of the meeting, but they should also publish the agendas and motions presented by the leadership, especially now that these have been agreed and are thereby official YP documents.

For a start, there are some practical considerations. As mentioned, the document on ‘election strategy’ outlines a strict timeline for those who want to stand under the YP banner (leaving aside that this process is designed so that very few people will actually be able to do so) - there is a short 10-day window to submit applications, which finishes on March 25. Who knows when HQ will publish the relevant document. Most members will not even know it exists - which is no doubt the point.

But the key issue is, of course, accountability. Only well-informed members can decide who on their leadership is doing a good job - and who deserves to be criticised, or perhaps replaced. Transparency and openness are clearly weapons the left in Your Party must take up.

Some fear that this could lead to GL CEC members “getting expelled”. For a start, we think it is highly unlikely that HQ would really expel nine CEC members for publishing the agenda, motions and documents agreed in the leadership meetings.

There is no way to positively spin such a move. And, even if they did expel them, in practice, it would hardly make much difference. The full CEC - that much should be clear now - will not be seeing any key documents and it will not be making any key decisions. GL members are supposed to play the role of ‘tame opposition’. We encourage them to strongly resist that horrible fate.