On 23 October, Field Place Manor House and Barns in Worthing hosted an event rather different in nature from its usual weddings and corporate seminars. In the tastefully converted Sussex Barn, sharp suits and evening gowns were swapped for a more casual attire, incorporating more than a few keffiyehs, Palestine flag pins and Lenin caps, as dozens of local socialists gathered for a meeting of Your Party.
With the schedule consisting of five speakers followed by audience questions, the opening act was a short video message from Jeremy Corbyn, followed by remarks from local independent councillors and activists. It culminated in a powerful stump speech from Zarah Sultana, who announced the formation of Your Party in July via a post on X, reportedly to the consternation of Corbyn and some of his allies.
Committed socialist vision can generate electoral success
Worthing Borough Councillor Hilary Schan spoke of how Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party inspired a significant swing towards Labour in the 2017 General Election, eating into Tim Loughton’s previously solid Tory majority in East Worthing and Shoreham. This momentum carried through to local elections, with 2017 seeing Labour win its first seat on Worthing Borough Council in decades, and subsequently taking control of the council in 2022. For the last few years, three of the hitherto Labour councillors sat as independents, and by working with Green colleagues have won important concessions from Labour regarding the allocation of local funds.
Her point being that, regardless of the backing of one of the major parties, a committed socialist vision that fights for working class constituents can generate a swell of hope that translates into electoral success.
Grassroots activism and electoral success
The second speaker presented a complementary but different focus, emphasising the importance of building a robust activist base in local communities rather than fixating on electoralism, and arguing that it was the failure to build such a movement that allowed the Corbyn project within the Labour Party to be so easily erased after Starmer took over. In fairness, Labour did make attempts to build a grassroots movement under Corbyn, such as with its Community Organising Unit (COU) started in 2018. This was however, likely too late to make much impact, and the COU was quickly scrapped under Starmer.
Indeed, it is in this sphere of grassroots activism that the incipient Your Party, which doesn’t yet have a permanent name, should arguably look for any realistic chance of making impact in the immediate future. Especially given that much of the political energy and goodwill that it could have captured has instead manifested in a new wave of enthusiasm for the Green Party, whose membership has almost doubled since Zack Polanski won its leadership, with the latter becoming a dominant and highly effective left-wing figurehead in the media.
A realistic alternative to the effective left-looking Green Party?
The Green Party is a long established, well structured, organised and apparently congenial party, in stark contrast to the, at times, shambolic drama involved in getting Your Party off the ground. Naturally, many socialists and progressives might therefore question the value of placing time, effort or trust in Your Party when the Greens under Polanski are moving in a bold leftward direction and seem a much slicker operation prepared to fight elections.
Returning to Worthing’s meeting, Sultana made several attempts to contrast Your Party with the Greens, at first hinting that Your Party wants not just ‘a wealth tax here, lowering some bills there,’ but a root and branch transformation of the economy away from capitalism. Of course, the Greens’ programme is by any reasonable assessment a socialist one, not just focused on the odd wealth tax but renationalisation of water and energy retailers, community owned renewables projects, the repeal of anti-union legislation and a maximum 10:1 pay ratio for public and private organisations, to give but a taste. It’s difficult to compare this against what Your Party is offering, as the latter is yet to hold its first conference and has no policy programme.
Sultana claimed that Your Party is the only party that favours cutting off trade and diplomatic ties to Israel and is proudly anti-Zionist; again, the Greens might beg to differ.
She also stated that Your Party wants the UK to immediately withdraw from NATO, in contrast to the Greens. This is one point on which the contrast is real, with the current Green policy being to ‘work within NATO’. This contrast, I would contend, should be an embarrassment for the Greens, and a credit to Your Party – with several caveats. Firstly, as with other issues Your Party has no official policy on this yet, and Sultana’s forthright stance is not necessarily that of her colleagues. Secondly, Polanski himself has argued that his party’s policy should change, and that the UK should look to replace NATO membership with a new European alliance independent of US imperialism.
Can a fully democratic party be effective?
During the question and answer session of Worthing’s meeting, one of the points that was heavily emphasised by the speakers was that Your Party will be fully democratic, with all aspects of strategy and policy determined by members, even down to the party’s name.
We certainly need more democratic participation in our political system, but could Your Party be sacrificing cohesion and efficacy on the altar of performative talking circles? For instance, when the party, with nearly a million supporters signed up, began soliciting suggestions for its name, this was not presented as a multiple-choice shortlist but simply a blank suggestion box. That seems like an impractical basis for forging consensus.
A new party for the many not the few
Notwithstanding such organisational question marks, there was certainly hope and energy in that Worthing barn, and I await with keen interest the outcome of Your Party’s inaugural conference at the end of November. Those in Sussex wishing to get involved in the meantime may join the party and participate in its regional assembly in Brighton on 8 November.
However rocky its inception may have been, there’s plenty of space and appetite for left parties in Britain since Labour has lurched rightwards. This new vehicle for the many, not the few, can only be a good thing.
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