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Sultana says Your Party must never become 'Labour 2.0' as she condemns expulsions as 'unacceptable'
Sultana addresses why she refused to enter the conference hall on Saturday in solidarity with delegates who were expelled over links to other leftwing parties, which she described as a “witch-hunt”.
She said:
We have to confront what took place yesterday, the expulsions, the bans, the censorship on conference floor are unacceptable.
It’s undemocratic. It’s an attack on members and this movement. And those decisions were made at the top, not by you.
Many of those people expelled found out only after they had arrived in Liverpool, people who had travelled across the country took time off work, booked hotels, spent hundreds of pounds that they could not easily spare, discovered at the door that they had been barred, and the shocking sight of a Muslim woman being manhandled and dragged out of conference is something that should shame any party that claims to stand for equality and justice.
These actions come straight out of the labour rights handbook, the same playbook we have all lived through for years, the witch-hunts, the smears, the intimidation, the bullying, the legal threats and the leaks to the Murdoch press. Let me be absolutely clear, the members will not stand for this. The movement will not stand for this, and I will not stand for this. I did not leave the Labour party. You did not leave the Labour party to create another Labour party …
This party must never become a labour 2.0 and that is why we are here to build a new kind of politics, democratic, principled and rooted in the power of the working class.
Sultana says she is honoured to co-found Your Party with Corbyn
She says she is honoured to co-found Your Party with Jeremy Corbyn, whom he says she has an “enormous amount of admiration and respect for”.
Sultana said Corbyn gave a lot of people “hope” when he became leader of the Labour party in 2015.
Sultana says Your Party has more than 55,000 members, making it the largest socialist party in the UK since the 1940s.
“We have built something no one in westminster believed was possible, a mass democratic working-class movement,” she said.
Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, is arriving on stage to loud applause from members in the crowd.
Zarah Sultana is expected to make a speech shortly. We will be covering her address to the conference in Liverpool live.
You can watch Your Party’s conference proceedings live here:
Spoiler alert!
The results of a vote to decide on a permanent name for the Your Party group meeting in Liverpool is due to be announced later. But from the looks of this picture, there is a clear favourite.
Rachel Reeves has said she was “uncomfortable” listening to Kemi Badenoch’s response to the budget, in which the Conservative leader mocked and impersonated the Chancellor.
During her budget response in the Commons on Wednesday, Badenoch called Reeves “spineless, shameless and completely aimless”, adding: “Let me explain to the Chancellor, woman to woman: people out there aren’t complaining because she’s female, they’re complaining because she is utterly incompetent.”
As Keir Starmer and Reeves exchanged words on the frontbench, the Tory leader asked: “Is he mansplaining to you, by the way?” In an interview before the budget, Reeves had told the Times: “I’m sick of people mansplaining how to be chancellor to me.”
Reeves told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme:
I don’t like that sort of stuff. I don’t do it. I try to concentrate on policies rather than personalities.
So, yes, I was a bit uncomfortable listening to that, because it’s not really the way that I behave, but people are entitled to deliver the budget response that they want and she focused on personalities.
Asked whether she went too far in her response, Badenoch told Kuenssberg:
I remember last year’s budget – Rachel Reeves took a swipe at me, I wasn’t even leader of the opposition then – she’s forgotten now.
I remember when Rachel Reeves was out there calling Rishi Sunak a liar. I remember when they were all calling Liz Truss a lettuce.
But now it’s them and I’m merely talking about her competence. They can’t take it. They like to dish it, but they can’t take it.
Despite not entering the conference yesterday, Zarah Sultana is still set to give a speech in the main hall on Sunday afternoon as scheduled.
She is expected to attack the Labour government and Reform UK while praising newly-elected New York mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker, has explored the reasons behind the factionalism and infighting plaguing Your Party in this piece:
Here are some of the key timings for the second day of Your Party’s inaugural conference in Liverpool:
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Zarah Sultana is expected to make a speech at about 2pm
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The result of the vote among members on four options for Your Party’s permanent name will be announced between 4.25pm and 4.40pm. The name choices are: Your Party, Our Party, For the Many, or Popular Alliance.
Your Party spokesperson says collective leadership model vote shows it is 'doing politics differently'
A Your Party spokesperson said after the collective leadership option was narrowly approved by members voting online:
This vote shows that we really are doing politics differently: from the bottom-up, not the top-down.
In Westminster we have a professional political class increasingly disconnected from ordinary people, serving corporations and billionaires instead of the communities they are supposed to represent.
With a truly member-led party, we will offer something different: democratic, grassroots, accountable.
Collective leadership will see ordinary members (not MPs) elected to an executive committee.
Zarah Sultana has welcomed the Your Party conference’s decision to choose a collective leadership model over a single leader option.
She said:
I have fought for maximum member democracy since day one. Seeing members choose collective leadership is truly exciting.
Together, we’re building a new socialist party – radically democratic and powered by a mass movement. This party will be led by its members, not MPs. This is only the beginning.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour party leader, had previously indicated he would favour a single leader model and would have been likely to stand for the position.
Your Party adopts 'collective leadership' structure
Ben Quinn
Ben Quinn is a senior reporter for the Guardian
The founding conference of the new left-wing party currently headed by Jeremy Corbyn and others has narrowly voted for it to have a ‘collective leadership’ in a win for Zarah Sultana, who has been at loggerheads with the former Labour leader.
The results were announced this morning after a chaotic start to the conference in Liverpool when Sultana, a former Labour MP who now sits as an independent, boycotted the first day amid disagreements over how Your Party – its provisional name – should be run.
Corbyn had said in advance of the results of voting on new constitutional arrangements that it was “quite hard for the public to grasp things that there are sort of ten people who run things.”
However, members voted by 51.6% to 48.6% for the party – whose future name will be announced later today following the counting of other voting – to have a collective leadership model. A new member-led executive will take the big decisions around the party’s management and strategy, with a chair, deputy chair and spokesperson helping to provide public leadership.
There were also wins for the other positions advocated by Sultana, including for members to be able to have dual membership of other political group.
The latter vote is significant against the backdrop of in-fighting which saw Sultana refusing to enter the conference hall on Saturday in solidarity with delegates who were expelled over links to other leftwing parties, which she described as a “witch-hunt”.
Members of other parties will be eligible to join only after their party has been ratified by the party’s new executive (CEC) and Conference as being aligned with the party’s values.
Corbyn had told journalists on Saturday that entry to Your Party was granted on the condition members were not aligned with other parties registered with the Electoral Commission. The party last week revealed a shortlist of names for its members to pick from and which will be announced later today: Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance and For The Many.
Budget 2025: key points at a glance
My colleagues Rob Davies and Rowena Mason have done a useful explainer looking at the main points of the budget, which you can read here:
