Jeremy Dewar
Against all the odds, Your Party’s founding conference in Liverpool was a success – not only for the party, which at various points looked like it wouldn’t get off the ground, but for the left wing, the activists, who recorded some significant victories.
Against all the odds, Your Party’s founding conference in Liverpool was a success – not only for the party, which at various points looked like it wouldn’t get off the ground, but for the left wing, the activists, who recorded some significant victories.
Yes, there were headlines to give the media and the satirists plenty to ridicule, but the atmosphere in the hall, where over a thousand sortitioned ‘delegates’ debated the motions, was both comradely and excited.
To Your Party’s detractors, we should reply, what other party allows members to decide its political programme, structure and strategy? The fact that it was a relative success was down to the members being willing and prepared to defy the leadership when needed.
But a number of the bureaucratic manoeuvres by the team of Corbyn advisers and Independent MPS succeeded, despite the fact that several of them backfired in Liverpool.
Several leading SWP members, including Lewis Nielsen, were expelled on 28 November, the very eve of conference, while Michael Lavalette, Preston Independent Councillor and Counterfire, was denied entry because ‘we know you’re planning to disrupt conference’. Oh, for a crystal ball like this!
Popularly endorsed motions, like calling for party officials to be paid the average workers’ wage, were not taken. Mics were cut off and the livestream stopped when critical speeches were made. Zarah Sultana was denied passes for her team, including her husband.
No names are ever given for these decisions, though everyone knows Karie Murphy must have authorised them. The danger of an unelected bureaucracy, as we have seen time and again in the Labour Party and the unions, is a scourge on the labour movement. The grassroots will have to organise independently, call for the reversal of the suspensions and remain vigilant.
Wins and losses
The votes, by quite large majorities, to declare the party explicitly socialist, working class, pro-trans rights and anti-oppression were not merely symbolic, though they have yet to be translated into programme and practice. They were a blow to the right wing Independence Alliance MPs.
Closer, 52%-48%, was the vote for a collective leadership and therefore no separate leadership body to the Central Executive Committee (CEC). This makes the election in the New Year extremely important, not just to cement the political gains, but to hold the MPs to account, build democratic branches and regions, and to overturn the expulsions.
But there were setbacks. Voting arrangements were changed last-minute to roll out the vote to all members, not just those selected to attend the conference. This was clearly the result of concerns that those attending the conference and hearing the debate would be more likely to vote against the leadership’s wishes. But the manoeuvre was only partially successful.
Unsurprisingly, those voting via the app and the website chose online, all member-voting rather than delegate and branch-based democracy. This poses challenges for branches, whose activity may now be directed by inactive members.
The CEC will be elected by region, not nationally, meaning its political cohesion and accountability to the party as a whole are likely to be weakened. Also the ‘witch-hunting’ clause remains, albeit with the CEC deciding which national ‘parties’ to exclude (the best of the two options available for voting).
Equally contentious was the decision to set up a ‘workers’ commission’ to elaborate a plan to strengthen the party’s links to the unions. Most members probably took this on face value, but the danger lies in the clause granting a reserved place on this commission for ‘senior trade union’ figures.
If the likes of Len McCluskey (who was in Liverpool) and Mark Serwotka are involved, we can expect the interests of the bureaucracy to dominate. Neither has a track record in democratic membership rights or industrial militancy. Branches should follow up with their own workers’ commissions, inviting strikers, union branches and trades councils, and working closely with rank and file groups like NHS Workers Say NO and Troublemakers At Work.
Way forward
One of the most important gains was in relation to the May 2026 local election campaigns. Conference voted by a 90% majority to say that:
‘[B]ranches should organise open public conferences, including representatives of trade unions, community organisations, socialist parties, and others, to discuss their local community’s needs and draw up a no-cuts ‘Peoples’ Budget’ based on those needs’.
It went on to demand ‘the money to pay for it from central government’. Branches should seize on this to launch ‘no cuts’ campaigns in working class communities and workplaces.
They should resist any attempts to dissolve borough and city-wide branches that have sprung up and are ideally placed to fight such campaigns. Likewise they should link up regionally to ensure unity around a radical programme.
The success of Your Party will depend on the grassroots taking control of the organisation and driving it forward as a party of struggle. Initiatives to convene democratic meetings of elected branch delegates and motions for voting, like the all-London grassroots assembly, are to be welcomed.
It is welcome that Zarah Sultana has continued her leftwards trajectory (she called for nationalisation of the banks in the fringe meeting). But she has yet to make herself accountable to the left, preferring individual gestures, like ‘boycotting’ conference on the Saturday. But if Zarah is prepared to work under the collective leadership of the CEC, and with the branches and regions, then of course she would be an asset.
We must not wait for any such developments, however. The main thing is to take Your Party onto the streets, into the schools and colleges, into the workplaces and union branches.
Workers Power will fight for YP to take up radical campaigns, based on immediate and transitional demands, aiming to strengthen working class organisation, from renters’ unions to strike committees, and win victories.
Despite an impressive 55,000 members, Your Party is yet not the mass, working class and consistently socialist party many of its members want it to become. But we are ready to fight alongside them to make this happen, though we openly say that this can and must be as a revolutionary party.