They’ve called for Corbyn and Sultana to ‘hand the reins over to the grassroots membership’
It’s not been a good week for ‘Your Party’, the new political party supposedly being formed by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.
On one chaotic day, Sultana launched a membership scheme for the party, Corbyn branded this ‘false’, Sultana accused her fellow Independent Alliance MPs of being a ‘sexist boys club’, the sending of an email to the party membership was referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office, leading figures said they were ‘shocked and appalled’ by the events, and the first formal faction within the party was launched.
Off the back of that, you’d be forgiven for thinking everyone would want a day off. Not so for ‘Our Party’ a brand new group of activists who are trying to stage a takeover of ‘Your Party’.
As first reported by Novara Media, the new group has launched a petition calling for the six Independent Alliance MPs (of which both Corbyn and Sultana are members) to step down as the leaders of the party-to-be and give the leadership over to grassroots ‘members’.
According to Novara Media, ‘Our Party’ is demanding: “that the leadership of the party be given to a handover committee, including a trade union general secretary, a social movement lawyer and a representative from the climate movement”.
Novara later carried a comment piece from two people from ‘Our Party’ – Jonas Marvin and Shanice McBean – in which they argued that there is a “crisis of leadership gripping our movement” and called for “the MPs involved in Your Party” to “step aside from leading” the process of founding the party. The pair wrote: “In the past 24 hours, a deep-seated feeling of confusion, embarrassment and demoralisation has cast a dark cloud over the base of this movement. We hoped that Corbyn, Sultana, the IA and its supporters could be trusted to undertake this precious chance of founding a new political party. We had hoped that they would lead with the best politics of our tradition at the forefront: solidarity and unity in action. But our admiration for both Corbyn and Sultana notwithstanding, we were wrong. There is a crisis of leadership gripping our movement: power now needs to be put in the hands of the grassroots. A new campaign, entitled Our Party, seeks to do exactly that.”
It goes on to conclude: “To all those at the top of the party: your power struggles are jeopardising this historic opportunity. We demand you take a step back, observe the bigger picture, get serious, and hand the reins over to the grassroots membership. Put your money where your mouth is, and give us our party.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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