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The new leftwing party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be called Your Party after a vote by members, but its weekend conference laid bare bitter divisions.
Just over 37% of members voted for the name Your Party, provisionally adopted when it was launched earlier this year, to become permanent. The votes for others on the shortlist were 25.23% to be called For The Many, 25.23% for Popular Alliance and 14.19% for Our Party.
Sultana, who has been at loggerheads with Corbyn, reignited tensions on Sunday with a blistering attack on those “at the top” of the party after boycotting the conference’s first day in protest at the expulsion of several members belonging to the Socialist Workers party.
Members meeting in Liverpool and those online had narrowly voted by 51.6% to 48.4% for the party to be steered by a new member-led executive, with a number of public-facing roles. Corbyn, whose preferred model was for a sole leader, had warned that he believed it was “hard for the public to grasp things” when a group of people were running the party instead of a single leader.
Before the conference closed with members singing Bella ciao – the Italian anti-fascist folk song – Corbyn made an appeal for unity, saying he understood “all the frustrations” surrounding its establishment. To muted applause, he also pointedly thanked Karie Murphy, his former chief of staff during his leadership of Labour and who has become a bogey figure for some in Your Party.
The members’ endorsement of a collective leadership model staves off a potentially explosive head-to-head contest between Corbyn and Sultana. But the party’s executive will conduct a review into different options, leaving the possibility that in two years’ time a more traditional leadership structure will be in place before the general election.
Sultana had earlier hailed the members’ endorsement of a collective leadership model, saying she had been fighting for “maximum member democracy” from the start of the new party. However others in the party painted this as disingenuous, saying that her central demand from the beginning has been for “co-leadership” with Corbyn.
Speaking later from the main stage on Sunday, Sultana expressed contrition for her part in what she described as the “hiccups” around the formation of the party. Rows over money, its name and Sultana’s unilateral moves to in effect announce Your Party’s launch have divided the party and included two independent MPs choosing to leave.
However, she went on to say that, before the party moved forward it had to “confront” the events on Saturday, adding: “The expulsions, bans and censorship on conference floor are unacceptable.
“It’s undemocratic. It’s an attack on members and on this movement. And these were decisions made at the top, not by you,” she said to loud applause from some members, as others remained seated.
Opponents of Sultana in the party, including backers of Corbyn, privately accused her of seeking to undermine him by appealing to a purist vision of what a socialist party should be.
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They also accuse her faction of seeking to freeze out socially conservative Muslims, and paving the way for polarising far-left groups to influence the new party’s direction.
The debates after Sultana’s speech continued to be fiery, with calls being made from the stage for the current leadership to be removed. Sultana also reiterated her earlier calls for Your Party to be an anti-Zionist party and said “we must sever all ties with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel”.
There were also wins for the other positions advocated by Sultana and her faction in Your Party, including for members to be able to hold dual membership of other political groups. Members voted to allow dual membership by 69.2% to 30.8%.
The latter vote is significant against the backdrop of in-fighting which saw her 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 and conference as being aligned with the party’s values.
Corbyn had said on Saturday that entry was granted on the condition members were not aligned with other parties registered with the Electoral Commission. He issued a call for unity as he opened the conference on Saturday, acknowledging there had been “mistakes” in the party’s foundation.
The MP for Islington North said the party had “a unique opportunity” to found “a socialist party of mass appeal” against a “triopoly of political thinking in parliament”.
But the party’s foundation has been overshadowed by internal conflict, resulting in a botched membership launch and threats of legal action. Two other independent MPs, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed, withdrew from the party’s founding process in part due to infighting.
Those involved are also playing catch-up with the momentum behind the Green party under its new leader, Zack Polanski, amid a battle to take on the mantle of being the leading voice to the left of Labour.
