The Central Executive Committee (CEC) of Your Party (YP) met for the first time on Tuesday 3rd March 2026. The meeting was scheduled with one day’s notice and described as an introductory call. Another full meeting took place on the 8th March from 3–5.45 pm. These meetings were set by the outgoing interim leadership of Your Party. As can be deduced from these timings the meeting were of an introductory nature and provided little time for discussion or detailed planning of the next phase in the building of the party.
In the first meeting there was very little time given for members of the CEC to introduce themselves. In the second meeting, there was a list of amendments to the documents provided for the meeting, submitted by the Grassroots Left (GL) group. Only 30 seconds was allowed for speaking to each amendment. Most amendments were not discussed or replied to but went straight to a vote. The votes corresponded almost entirely to a split between the GL team, headed up by Zarah Sultana and The Many team, headed up by Jeremy Corbyn. All of the amendments apart from one minor uncontentious amendment fell. In the second meeting a substantive Chair (Jennifer Forbes) was elected, even though an alternative proposal for a Chair was made by the GL team. The GL team proposed Louise Regan – a member of the The Many slate, as a more unifying figure. Louise declined to stand as Chair on the grounds of work-load but later, paradoxically, agreed to take the Political Officer role. Also at the second meeting, a team of officers was elected. This team was made up of six representatives, all from TM slate.
The first two meetings of Your Party show a clear division between the two slates, with the TM slate using its superior numbers on the CEC to completely dominate the political and procedural direction of Your Party. There was no attempt to show a conciliatory or comradely working approach or to seriously consider very sensible amendments to the documents being discussed. The meeting was structured in such a way as to avoid discussing the setting up of branches and contained only the briefest mention of a position towards the up-coming local elections.
A request from the GL team for regular, timetabled meetings of the CEC was voted down on the grounds that CEC members may not have time for such a commitment: a day-long hybrid meeting of six hours once per month and a weekly meeting of two hours. There was also a refusal to publish the identities of office staff on the basis that they will face on-line abuse, when such information is quite usual in other organisations and political parties. This secrecy has enabled the paid team, who now describe themselves as “The Secretariat”, to hide from facing up to criticism and escape from carrying out their responsibilities to a professional standard. It also appears that the “Secretariat” under the tutelage of Carrie Murphy, was largely responsible for putting together the The Many slate, whereas the GL slate was generated through widespread consultation across the left of Your Party.
It is hardly surprising that TM slate obtained a majority in these elections because of the historic support for Corbyn and the greater resources TM slate had in promoting their candidates. The Many slate was able to use the database of the Peace and Justice project to contact members and urge them to vote for TM slate. The GL slate was also characterised by TM slate as being inward-looking- in fact the GL slate was put together to avoid this.
This Corbyn victory was not as overwhelming as it might at first appear. The TM slate got 14 seats on the CEC, the GL slate got 7 seats and 3 independents were elected. The TM slate got 38% of first preference votes, the GL slate received 30% and Independents 31%. This means that 62% of first preference votes failed to go to the Corbyn team. Of the three independents elected, two broadly supported the GL slate positions. This makes the decision to exclude all of the GL slate CEC members from the Officer team even more partisan because none of the three independents was elected to a position on the Officers team either. This effectively excludes almost two thirds of members from any representation on the “top table” of Your Party.
In the first CEC meeting Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi (an independent supportive of the GL slate) was proposed for the position of interim chair. Wimborne-Idrissi received the most votes of any of the regional candidates and is widely respected for her integrity, but this proposal was voted down. It seems reasonable that the Chair should be a member of The Many team, but Wimborne Idrissi could have been a unifying presence in some position on the officer’s team. In any event the team should have had a balance of forces, with at least seven members instead of six. The current team consists of: Chair, Vice Chair, Political Officer, Membership officer, Spokes-person and treasurer. There is no position of secretary – so presumably this key role will be taken by an unelected employee of the organisation. If there had been seven members of the Officers team then there could have been one independent member alongside two GL members and four TM members. This would have given TM a majority but allowed for a broader debate in the Officers team, more reflective of the membership. It would have allowed GL and independent supporters the comfort of at least feeling heard. As it stands the democratic ideas represented by the opposition to TM have been cynically supressed.
These are worrying times for Your Party. Zarah Sultana was previously shut out of any active role in the self-appointed leadership group of MPs set up by Jeremy Corbyn. It now seems clear the GL group is being sidelined within the CEC. It seems likely that the new Officers Team, made up of TM CEC members, will carry through its agenda in very much the same way as Carrie Murphy and her team did leading up to the election of the CEC. It’s almost certain the Officers Team will alienate the GL comrades and those thousands who voted for them and are otherwise on the left of Your Party. There have already been reports of a poor and disrespectful tone in the first two CEC meetings.
The hope for a member-led worker’s party seems a remote one. People are falling away from Your Party in droves and enthusiasm for the project is being sorely tested. Some will choose to fight for a democratic party. Others will go to the Greens, ultimately to be disappointed, or just disappear, like so many before them, into the political void. They will respond like the victims of earlier left experiments such as Momentum, Enough is Enough and the People’s Assembly, and drop out of political work. Up until now, Your Party has been led by ex-Labour operators who have inherited the poor undemocratic methods of the Labour Party. It appears that TM team don’t have the imagination to realise that Your Party can only be built by its members and not a semi-professional clique at the top. The mandate for the new party should be that power resides with the members and responsibility to carry through the agreed policies left with the CEC. The TM team now has seized the power to implement its agenda, but it needs to be aware that there is a majority in Your Party who favour member led democracy and will not want to see the democratic decisions of the Conference last year shunted aside.
A clear test will be the attitude towards dual membership, which the CEC can now determine. The TM majority may decide to exclude various political parties from Your Party and if they do, this will provoke a reaction from the wider membership who have been working collectively with members of a range of political groupings since the inception of Your Party.
Planning for the next Conference will begin soon and proposals for more democracy not less and for a conference that debates issues, not just listens to speeches from the “leadership”, is what will be called for. It is clear that many in Your Party are feeling marginalised and if their voices continue to be ignored, as they were leading up to the last Conference, then the consequences will be the loss of many of those who have held the party together at a local level up until now.
