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
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