The 'Your Party' project part 3: The Challenges: The Greens

 I was originally going to write up something about how I see the various challenges for the new party, how it tackles the Labour Party, Reform UK, Gaza, but Zack Polanski's election as leader of the Green Party decided me on focusing on the relationship of the new party and the Greens. I think it presents both challenges and opportunities, it could be said that the announcement of Your Party stole some of Polanski's thunder just as he was working his campaign to become leader of the Greens, and it is also probably true that, by becoming leader, he returns the favour, gaining the media headlines for at least a short while.

Historically, certainly for well over a decade, some people in the Green Party have tried to present it as a socialist party. However, it has been a far more heterogeneous alliance of the centre and the left, sort of eco-socialists alongside environmentally committed LibDems and therefore, like Tony Benn said of the Labour Party, not a socialist party, but a party with some socialists in it. 

I must admit to having been quite dubious regarding Polanski, his previous career and political trajectory are a trifle odd, but he seems to have integrity, passion and intelligence, he's definitely of the left, but I'm not entirely sure how left, nevertheless, his election marks a leftward shift for the Greens and maybe they will become the green socialist party that had been claimed of it by its left wing.

I saw a Facebook friend posting that there should be a coalition of the two parties - I think that when the new party hasn't even been formed it is terribly premature to suggest such a thing, it may never be appropriate, however it would also be wrong to have the two parties oppose each other needlessly to the benefit of the right. We need to see the actual shape (and the name!) of the new party, its membership, leadership and policies, before any substantial alliance can be formed, we need to see how they stand in relation to each other and also need to remember a very important lesson from the 1980s.

The Social Democratic Party is mostly forgotten now, and probably not much lamented, but it was formed from dissident centrists within the Labour Party when Michael Foot was leader, they contended that Labour had lurched too far, unacceptably so, towards the left, the initial 'gang of four' Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rogers, were soon joined by other Labour MPs and enjoyed some electoral success. They formed an alliance with the Liberal Party and were seen as a moderating influence within British politics when Labour was portrayed as extreme and the Tories actually were extreme. However, by 1987, they had lost most of their seats and merged with the Liberals to form the Lib Dems in 1989. (See the wikipedia entry here for the full sordid story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK))

A too close alliance between two parties can lead to one being absorbed by the other, and while that's not always a bad thing, the distinctiveness of each party may be lost. If it should happen, it needs to be on the basis of creating something new and bigger, which in any case is exactly what the new party is becoming from the various small groups and parties who are the founding elements of the organisation. 

If at all possible, there does need to be some kind of collaboration between the two parties, and certainly a 'non-aggression pact' over seats that could be won by one or the other party. But, and it is very important to state this, such initiatives must, must, must come from the members, not just the leadership. If a party is genuinely about a participatory democracy it needs to be generated by the members, not just a stitch-up from a leadership looking for their advantage. It does look as if both parties are genuinely oriented towards real participation and bottom-up politics (I think we need a different phrase for that!) in which case parties might find what they have in common at grassroots level.

The 'Your Party' project Part 2: The leaders and the members

 With over 800,000 people signing up for the new party, we have to wonder how many will actually join and become fee-paying members. I suppose that this partly depends on what the fees are and how seriously many of these signees that their initial enthusiasm. However, even if only one in four of them actually become members of the party when it is founded, that would still be a membership of 200,000 thousand, which is still pretty huge, and if only one in twenty of them become activists, that is 10,000 of them across the country.

Of course, the whole thing can still go tits up before the founding conference, and after that, factional infighting might bring things to a standstill and we could see all the energy and enthusiasm bleed away. But let's assume that at first, at any rate, nothing like that happens, and maybe, the longer nothing like that happens it could be less and less likely to happen. You can see I'm trying to temper my optimism here.

So, you have a membership and a leadership, on what basis does one have a leader or leaders and what is the role of the party membership in defining what the leaders do? Transform, as an example, frequently send questionnaires asking to vote on party policies. Think about this, a party membership who can vote on policies, not just at an annual conference, but as an aspect of regular party activity. And if the elected leaders act on what the membership have voted for, that's a massive step forward in terms of party democracy. We can compare this to the Labour Party, which, a few years ago, voted by quite a majority I seem to remember, for proportional representation. This is actually Labour Party policy, but not, as far as I can see, government policy. Apparently, the leadership can ignore its own party policies. How is that democratic? It's certainly very top-down rather than bottom-up, an established elite who use the membership for their own pursuit of power.

Of course, a bottom-up, membership led party isn't without problems, but if the new party manages this, it will be interesting to see how it overcomes these problems as time goes on.

Then the leaders, so the only people who have been mentioned so far are Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Both splendid people I'd say, but they present a few problems along the way.

1. Nobody else has been mentioned, nobody else is likely to be able to present a coherent platform in time for the founding conference. This makes it look like a done deal.

2. Corbyn is now 76, by the next general election he will be nearly 80. The performance of octogenarians in political leadership hasn't been glorious. Would anybody regard him as a potential prime minister by then? He also has a bit of a reputation as a ditherer, I honestly do not know if this is justified, it could be either a rumour from the Labour right or the result of his endlessly having been in conflict with the right while leader, trying to find an acceptable compromise, I don't know.

3. Sultana is the only other MP with substantial experience, at least so far. We may yet see other disillusioned Labour MPs joining. She is obviously intelligent, energetic, principled and she projects herself very well. The way she announced the new party suggests she could be a bit of a wild card, only time will tell. Her greatest disadvantages with some of the public are things that never should be, that she's a woman and a Moslem. Of course, they will act as advantages with others, so that may balance out.

In terms of operating within Westminster, it is both inevitable and proper that Corbyn should be their leader in the House of Commons and Sultana, if you like, an understudy, ready to take over when needed. But there's no need for either of them to be the party's national leader, in fact it might not need one, other forms of leadership are possible, I'm not going to worry about this just now, simply indicating that there are other possibilities to having a single, central, party leader. We'll have to see what options are put forward in the founding conference, and what is voted for.

A last thought on the members. many of the people who have signed up to the project were Labour supporters under Corbyn, it seems that many others have no previous political affiliations, I have no sources for this offhand, I read it somewhere, I'll try to check later and incorporate the information, if you have any confirmation - or evidence to the contrary - I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thoughts on the 'Your Party' project: Part 1.

Will anybody tell me that this isn't much to do with surrealism? Well, it is, at best tangential, but it is of interest to me and it gets me posting again after a long absence from this blog. There's actually a number of unfinished posts, some of which are best left unfinished, but this seems more urgent than any of them just now.

Although I have often commented on politics, I'm not really what one would call a political commentator, but this series of blog posts is me trying to make sense of a recent political phenomenon in which I am enmeshed. These posts are rough drafts that, when and if people make comments, and as situations develop, I can revise and add to.

The new party project, most often referred to as the "Corbyn-Sultana Party" but more properly as "Your Party" has attracted a great deal of media attention, often hostile, and frequently ill-informed, even on the left. It didn't just appear out of nothing, so it's worthwhile asking how it came about. 

Certainly, when Zarah Sultana announced the new party imminent arrival, it came as a surprise to many, her announcement surprised me, but not because the new party came out of the blue, but rather the timing and mode of its announcement. I'll give some numbered points to lay out what I know of the prehistory of this project.

1. There was an established project, an effort on the part of a number of left-wing groups, including Left Unity, Transform party and many more local groups, to create a new left-wing party. It had, as far as I know, its immediate origins in the aftermath of the Labour victory in July 2024, but talks had been going on long before that.

2. I would be surprised if Jeremy Corbyn didn't know about these discussions and he may well have lent friendly support to them. He was not necessarily integral to these discussions, I don't know. As a member of Transform I was kept informed of the general direction of the discussions, but not the details. While many of the main bodies and persons involved were known, others were kept confidential for the time being. 

3. The idea was that during this year negotiations would bring the new party into being in time for the local elections in 2026. There was, apparently a sense of urgency, especially after the results of 2025's local election results, but this didn't seem to translate into any rapid decision that would produce the new party until...

4. Zarah Sultana's announcement seemed to just come out of nowhere for many, I rather assumed she did so with the blessing of the negotiators of the new party, but they seemed a little taken aback as well. As for Jeremy Corbyn, wherever he was placed within or alongside the negotiations, he also does seem to have been surprised by the timing. I do suspect that the negotiations had become very protracted and her announcement of a new party forced everybody's hand.

5. Sultana claimed that she and Corbyn would lead the formation of a new party. This is clearly not the same as being leaders of the new party. If they had been appointed as caretaker leaders until the founding conference, that would make perfect sense and be acceptable to most of the people involved. However, I am not at all sure this is quite how it was, although it seems to have become how it is, and the majority of stakeholders in the new party seem quite happy with the new arrangement.

6 As far as I know, all the stakeholders in the new party are happy enough with the situation, it does seem to have been messy and uncoordinated at the beginning, but everybody rallied sufficiently, and sufficiently rapidly to overcome this impression of being disorganised.

7. Everything now depends on the founding conference being a success. The new party, whatever the final name will have a large membership, at least half a dozen MPs and a number of councillors as well. That's a pretty good start and, given that Reform UK started with less, but a hell of a lot of money behind them as well as the complicity of the media, who knows what is possible?

The answer is, we don't know what is possible even less what is likely, but the future for this new party, the "Your Party" project, we know the rough, approximate shape, but not who will be prominent or leaders within it, (except Corbyn and Sultana) the name of the party or what size the membership will be. (We can assume that not everybody who has signed up for Your Party will become fee-paying members when the party is actually founded). 

I am cautiously optimistic. This is the biggest shift on the left in the UK for a century and it could become as important as the founding of the Labour Party in 1900, or it could be a massive damp squib, or anywhere between, we just don't know, but at least there is an opening, a possibility, a hope for the future, and for the rest, we shall see.

I'll post several other posts on this subject, looking at the various aspects of the new party, its membership and leadership, likely policies, media hostility, electoral possibilities and so on.

Here is a link to the Your Party statement: https://www.yourparty.uk/statement