‘This was a project with huge potential which to a large degree has been trashed’
Leading left wing journalist Owen Jones has branded Your Party’s beginnings as a ‘clusterf*ck’, and compared it to the infamous and disastrous Fyre Festival. He made the comments in an interview with Left Foot Forward at the party’s founding conference in Liverpool.
Your Party’s (that is now its official name) founding conference was beset with infighting, divisions and public spats. One of its own MPs Zarah Sultana decided to boycott the first day of the conference, claiming that a ‘witch-hunt’ had been carried out within the party.
All of this followed senior members of the Trotskyist group the Socialist Workers Party being expelled from Your Party for being a member of both parties. Your Party denies claims of a ‘witch-hunt’, claiming that it was merely enforcing membership rules which at the time explicitly prohibited Your Party members being a member of any other political party.
And of course, this came after the various back and fourth dramas that have plagued the embryonic party in recent months, drama which has included two MPs – Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed – resigning from the party, legal threats issued by Sultana and others, and two separate membership schemes – one ‘official’ and one ‘unofficial’ being launched by different factions of the party.
Owen Jones was at the conference to film one of his widely watched videos of party conferences which involves him speaking to leading figures and rank-and-file party members.
Asked what the vibe of the conference had been following his conversations with members, Jones told Left Foot Forward that people were ‘quite frustrated’ that the political project being founded at the conference had been ‘to a large degree’ ‘trashed’.
He said: “There’s a lot of people here who are desperate for an alternative and want to make that work – often people who used to be in the Labour Party – and obviously vast numbers of people, both members and voters, have fled. I think a lot of people are quite frustrated because this was a project with huge potential which to a large degree has been trashed and I think people think that was totally unnecessary and I think I agree with them.”
Speaking specifically on the internal spats that have spilled out into the public throughout the conference, Jones said: “I think it’s ridiculous. I just don’t understand what the strategy is. If your interest is just trying to make something work and having problems and grievances which you want addressed, if that means just imploding the whole project, I don’t understand what the point of that is actually myself.”
He went on to compare these events to Fyre Festival – the infamous and disastrous failed musical festival. He told Left Foot Forward: “And I just think now having this – you know the main story in the Guardian is about chaos at Your Party – it’s just a bit Fyre Festival for people isn’t it? I think it’s a shame because I think with Jeremy Corbyn I think you’ve seen today that kind of traditional appeal he’s had. His kind of authentic, unpolished, quite moral emotional commitment to social justice and fighting injustice – and you can see that on show. But it’s just been crowded out by unnecessary drama.”
What’s the impact of all this? For Jones, the chaotic start to Your Party will lead to people on the left getting behind the Greens instead.
He said: “I think there’s this unique opportunity for the left to reach a mass audience, and I think people are just very pragmatic about where their energy went, and I just think because of the way this has unnecessarily had so many clusterf*cks, a lot of people just thought there’s too much drama and bad vibes and they decided ‘well I’m just going to conclude that the energy’s going to go through the Green Party for now’. And they’ve sort of left and just stopped paying attention I think.”
Later, when asked how Your Party’s founding conference compared to the Green Party’s conference earlier this year, Jones said: “Look, a lot of that membership are people who would have joined this party. But they haven’t because this is such a clusterf*ck.
“I just think there is just more excitement, more of a sense of purpose, here’s a big opportunity, let’s make the most of it. People are excited, they found a charismatic leader who’s communicating in a very effective way. They’ve turned the page on their own failures of communication which the Greens had which I kept critiquing. It’s just a lot more hopeful, optimistic, positive energy.”
Despite this, Jones said that he isn’t ‘writing off’ Your Party yet. He told Left Foot Forward: “There’s lots [of energy] here. That’s what’s annoying. Most people here want to do that, and actually are pissed off and I feel angry on their behalf. I feel angry for people who just wanted to take their idealism and build something new, exciting and inspiring, and I think they’ve been betrayed.
“I’m not writing this off because there’s all this – people have this energy here and all the rest of it, but they need to get their act together and move away from that. And again we’ve seen today – yet again – an attempt to double down on all the things that have made this project not the success it could have been.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: Jwslubbock – Creative Commons
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