Your Party regional assembly in Norwich (Picture: Your Party)
Activists are fighting to make Your Party into a radical, insurgent force that can shake up British politics.
Over 150 people joined a Your Party regional assembly in Norwich on Sunday. It’s the first of a series in the run-up to the founding conference at the end of next month.
It came a few days after Your Party released a series of key documents about what it would stand for and how it would run.
Paul McGarr, a socialist from Cambridge, was at the East Anglia assembly. He told Socialist Worker, “All the debates were very positive as people grappled with what sort of party we want. For many people, it was their first time being involved in a political organisation.”
The assembly broke out into groups of around 12 people with a facilitator. Each group was given a section of the constitution to discuss, then the standing orders and the political statement.
“Many people don’t stick rigidly to the topics, but that depends on the facilitator,” explained Paul.
At the end, a note taker writes up the opinions and they are added to a Google document.
Your Party says it will amend the founding documents based on the feedback they receive at the assemblies. Despite the limitations of the structure, political arguments did come out.
Paul said, “There was a tension over the political statement because a section of people didn’t like the language about workers and class.
“We had to argue why class matters and why we have to say we’re for socialist policies.”
The political statement sets out Your Party’s “broad principles and purpose” while “policies will be decided through the party’s democracy”.
Your Party’s “goal is the transfer of wealth and power, now concentrated in the hands of the few, to the overwhelming majority in a democratic, socialist society”.
“Your Party’s aim is not only to win elections with a popular programme for real change,” it says, “but to shift the balance of power at every level of society—organising and campaigning in communities and workplaces, trade unions and social movements across the nations and regions.”
This is important. But why is there no specific mention of Palestine? It should be front and centre in the “broad principles”.
Your Party would likely not exist without the Palestine solidarity movement that has shaken up British politics and put Gaza on the ballot paper.
It should reflect and champion the radicalism of a movement that put 600,000 people onto the streets of London after the “ceasefire”. Elsewhere, the statement says that Your Party is “committed to equality across society and opposed to all forms of prejudice, discrimination and scapegoating”.
Anti-migrant racism is the glue that binds together Reform UK, the far right and fascists—and confronting it head on has to be key for the left.
So socialists should push for the statement to say clearly, “Blame the rich, not migrants,” or, “Refugees and migrants are welcome here.” And, similarly, Your Party should have a firm and clear commitment to trans+ rights and abortion rights.
Socialist Worker supporters are part of Your Party groups that have sprung up in towns and cities and been part of organising mass rallies.
But the constitution says, “Members may not hold membership in any other national political party except if specified by the Central Executive Committee.”
“I raised that and got a good response in my group of 12,” Paul said.
Socialist Worker hopes that a new left alternative is broad and pluralist, one which revolutionary socialists can be part of while maintaining independent revolutionary organisation and politics.
A new left party can boost the struggles on the streets and picket lines that are the key to winning social change. Get stuck in—and fight for a radical and democratic vision of a left party that champions struggle.
Tomáš Tengely-Evans
Over 150 locals met in Hackney last week for the Your Party supporters meeting.
Andrew Feinstein and Taylan Sabhaz, from the Kurdish and Turkish Electoral Alternative, framed the general discussion around the need for a left alternative.
The meeting was expertly chaired by local teacher Carly, who led the fight against St Dominic’s primary school closure earlier this year.
Almost every organising group fed back building for this Saturday’s Unity Demonstration in Whitechapel as top priority and reflected the need to build a mass movement against the far right.
The room agreed Your Party should have inclusive socialist politics focused on uniting the left, accountability within the party and how it should be inclusive of existing groups.
Ideas we raised on how to build Your Party locally. Despite the uncertainty at the top of Your Party, the new and seasoned activists in the room agreed we must not wait for the top to organise.
Agnese Chiesa
Over 150 people attended an inspiring Your Party public meeting in Withington, south Manchester, last Sunday.
Zarah Sultana spoke about the need for a socialist party, not a Labour Party 2.0, the need to defend migrants and trans people and for an open, democratic party.
She was joined on the all-female platform by a long-time local community activist and by a bus driver who described the recent successful strike led by Unite.
A third of those present were older activists who had been through Corbynism, reunited through the Palestine movement and had initiated the local Your Party meetings. The rest were young workers and students who were already socialists—the main organisers of the public meeting.
The contributions of those present and their energy and enthusiasm provided a model of what Your Party could be and showed a determination to spread working class organisation.
Edward Mynott
Around 250 people gave Jeremy Corbyn a warm reception in Hastings on Saturday. He was speaking at a Your Party rally alongside a housing campaigner and a nurse activist.
Jeremy focused on traditional issues such as the NHS, housing, planning law and benefit cuts. He briefly took on the far right scapegoating of refugees, and in the brief Q&A session he stated clearly that “trans rights are human rights”.
He also called for schools and colleges to be brought back under democratic control and for the removal of Ofsted and the exam culture. He also called for the renationalisation of the railways.
Strangely, he did not mention the Gaza genocide or the great movement for Palestine and he did not attack Keir Starmer. This was more of a policy speech than a rousing rally. Nevertheless, the size of the meeting is a good sign for the prospect of Your Party.
Simon Hester
19 homes have been destroyed and at least 19 more damaged
Another Blairite gimmick
Human rights groups say the sentences are 'torture'
