Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s fledgling party has identified four options for its official name. The options will be put to a vote by members at its founding conference this weekend.
The outfit will give supporters at the event in Liverpool a choice between Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance and For the Many. The result of the ballot is to be announced by Mr Corbyn on Sunday (November 30).
The conference comes amid simmering tensions after months of internal squabbling. A row between Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana resulted in a botched membership launch and threats of legal action.
It is understood that ex-Labour MP Ms Sultana spoke at a rally on Friday, to which Mr Corbyn was not invited.
The Independent MP for Islington North instead hosted an “evening of politics and culture” which coincided with Ms Sultana’s event.
A spokesman for the party, so far referred to as Your Party, said it was focused on “a positive member-led weekend” and “Zarah and Jeremy are united in that vision”.
Meanwhile, a number of members were kicked out of the outfit on Friday evening due to their membership of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP). They will no longer be able to attend the gathering.
It is understood there were concerns supporters of the SWP were planning to disrupt the conference, though Your Party sources cited their dual membership as the reason for their expulsion. It is against party rules to be a member of any other national party.
Your Party’s four MPs – Mr Corbyn, Ms Sultana, Shockat Adam and Ayoub Khan – are expected to give a speech at the event, alongside a series of grassroots community organisers and left-wing politicians from across Europe.
Key issues they hope to be ironed out by the end of the conference include whether the outfit should, for its first two years, adopt a traditional “single leader” model or a “lay-member” collective leadership model.
More than 2,500 members have been selected to attend the event, where supporters will also debate whether the party should back “socialist” independent candidates at the local elections in May. The party says it now has about 50,000 members in total.
In a bid to set the tone on the eve of the conference, Mr Corbyn hit out at the Government for “creating an economy of stress and despair”.
He said mental health problems have worsened because of Labour’s failure to tackle poverty and bring down the cost of living.
Mr Corbyn said: “Britain’s mental health crisis is a product of political choices taken by this Government. That includes the refusal to control private rent or end the energy rip-off. That includes their war on disability and sickness benefits.
“And it includes the failure to take real action on the climate crisis causing immense despair for young people.”
Earlier this year, a public spat erupted between Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana after she promoted a system to take payments for their new political outfit, which he disowned as an “unauthorised email”.
This prompted Ms Sultana to claim she faced a “sexist boys’ club” and to say she would instruct “specialist defamation lawyers”, though she later dropped the threat and vowed to “reconcile” with Mr Corbyn.
The former Labour leader later launched an “official” membership portal.
On Friday, Ms Sultana said: “I’m looking forward to the Your Party founding conference, where we’ll work collectively toward our shared socialist vision. We’re building a new kind of party – rooted in and democratically accountable to a mass movement.”
