“End The Witch-hunt”: The First 24 Hours At The Chaotic ‘Your Party’ Conference
Jeremy Corbyn speaking during the Your Party founding conference at the ACC Liverpool, 29 November 2025 (Credit: Stefan Rousseau / PA Images / Alamy Live News)
7 min read
Chaos has engulfed the first 24 hours of the inaugural conference of ‘Your Party’, the new political party being founded by Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and pro-Gaza Independent MPs.
Friday evening in Liverpool kicked off with Corbyn and Sultana holding separate events, in a sign of the ongoing tensions between the two co-founders. On Saturday, the situation went from bad to worse, with Sultana boycotting the first day of the conference over certain members being barred.
The atmosphere is fraught, and some Your Party (YP) members in attendance are complaining that the party is not operating in a fully democratic way. Socialist Workers Party (SWP) members were told they had been expelled on Friday, as no members of other political parties are allowed to join. Some received the news after arriving in Liverpool for the conference.
Corbyn is now being accused explicitly by allies of Sultana – and implicitly by Sultana herself – of overseeing a “witch-hunt”, in an echo of the fights over antisemitism that took place within the Labour Party when he was leader.
Responding to the claims on Saturday, Corbyn said: “I’m not running a witch-hunt against anybody. That is a fairly absurd thing to say. All we’ve said is you cannot be a member of two parties at the same time – that’s all.”
Allies of the former Labour leader have been confident in recent months that if he were to be up against Sultana in a leadership contest, he would win it, such is his status in the movement. Amid events at the YP conference, this assumption is now being challenged, as some of the members present are openly criticising Corbyn’s handling of the party’s founding.
It will not be clear whether these critics are representative of the wider membership until the results of key votes are announced at the conference on Sunday.
Some involved continue to despair about the project. Two MPs from the Independent Alliance group and former mayor Jamie Driscoll, who was initially involved in the founding, have already quit.
“I think the entire thing makes an excellent case for left Labourism and highlights the positive side of the constraints imposed by a) the whip, b) the ability to face outwards always, rather than fight to the death with your ostensible comrades,” one insider said.
I did not leave the Labour Party to create another Labour Party
Sultana’s rally on the eve of conference featured Lewis Nielsen, the national secretary of the SWP, who was expelled from YP hours before, among the speakers. He told the audience that “the clique” running YP is “undemocratic” and declared that “this weekend has to be a turning point”, adding: “We don’t need a Labour mark two.”
Max Shanly, another Sultana-aligned member who heads the Democratic Socialists faction, likened the battles he fought with Sultana as Young Labour members nine years ago to their battle now at YP conference.
“Many of the people we fought alongside have degenerated politically,” Shanly said, in comments widely interpreted as alluding to Corbyn. He called for “no witch-hunts, no bureaucratic manipulation, no expulsions” and said “revolutionary socialists” should be welcome in the party.
In Sultana’s own speech at the rally, she said: “I did not leave the Labour Party to create another Labour Party. That means we cannot replicate its worst elements.” She also called for “the entire economy” to be nationalised, specifically listing “banks, food production and construction, and so much more”.
A member of Sultana’s audience specifically accused Corbyn of overseeing a “witch-hunt” in YP. She identified herself as having been a member of the Labour Against The Witchhunt group, which campaigned against what they regarded as “politically motivated” accusations of antisemitism in Labour from 2017 to 2021. The comments were neither endorsed nor explicitly rejected by Sultana.
Corbyn also held his own event on Friday – an “evening of culture and politics” with former Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey. Sultana and Corbyn sent statements to be read out at each other’s events.
YP insiders have told PoliticsHome that he was encouraged to hold an event about Palestine instead, but he declined on the basis that he did not want a rival rally to Sultana’s rally.
We need to put an end to this psychodrama
Day two kicked off with a speech from Corbyn, who urged everyone to “be respectful of each other”. Members told PoliticsHome they thought the applause in the hall was muted when the co-founder took to the stage, considering his status on the left, and that this indicated members present were more supportive of Sultana.
The news later emerged that James Giles – an Independent councillor close to Sultana, who requested a pass for him as part of her team – had been barred from entering the conference.
Sources said a message sent to Sultana informed her that “James Giles will not be granted permission to attend Your Party Conference due to a private matter related to an ongoing investigation by the ICO”.
“I have never been contacted by the ICO about this or any other matter,” Giles told PoliticsHome. Asked who he believed made the decision, he replied: “Karie Murphy”. Murphy, the former chief of staff to Corbyn, who is attending the YP conference as a key organiser of it, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Asked what he thought Corbyn’s role was in the decision, Giles said: “I don’t think he has one. I think Jeremy is a decent, honest man who wants to build an inclusive, democratic, grassroots movement.”
“Regardless of whether you're team Corbyn or team Sultana – not that there should be a team Corbyn or team Sultana – I think all sides can agree that this has been a bit of a mess and we need to put an end to this psychodrama,” he added, also calling for “an end to this nonsense witch-hunt”.
Sultana has decided not to attend the conference on Saturday, “in solidarity with excluded members, including James Giles”, a source close to her confirmed. PoliticsHome understands that Sultana is still looking forward to delivering her speech on Sunday and is participating in online voting.
On the exclusion of Giles and Sultana’s boycott, a Your Party spokesperson replied: "Members of another national political party signed up to Your Party in contravention of clearly stated membership rules – and these rules were enforced.
“We're focused on hosting a democratic founding conference with thousands of members coming together to debate and decide the big issues. This is politics outside the Westminster mould: from the ground up, not the top down."
He needs to be stronger in calling out the lies
Members attending conference have expressed frustration about the perceived lack of internal democracy, with some complaining that speeches have taken up too much time in the conference timetable compared to debate of member motions.
James Bower, a YP member selected through sortition to be at the conference, said: “The roadmap amendments were all put in by the organisers, not the members, but have been given priority over member motions. Member motions will only be heard ‘if there is time’, but the schedule has been packed with speakers, even one was added that wasn’t on the agenda.”
He added: “The only thing that could turn this culture around is Zarah as leader, kicking out all those who were involved in it. However, she has come out in favour of collective leadership, which may well win because ironically she seems more popular in the room.”
Callum Read, another YP member at the conference, said of the infighting: “It’s a shame, because I’m one of the many people that, as soon as it was announced, I was so excited. I don't feel put off by it because at the end of the day, it's the beginning, and we're going to sort it out. But it's how it's already controlling the narrative.“
Toby Cain, a lorry driver, said of Corbyn: “I think he’s not strong enough. Because when he was being called out for being antisemitic and racist, he wasn’t standing up and saying, ‘No, I'm not that’. He was just letting it happen. He needs to be stronger in calling out the lies because all the other people, like Nigel Farage, always come out and say ‘I’m not that, I’m not that’”.
YP sources said many members are enjoying the conference and highlighted that a spirited debate was held today about the nature of the party being built, including whether it should be explicitly "socialist" or "working-class".
During the debate, one member suggested YP should work with Farage if there were issues on which they could work together. They were booed by other members.
Additional reporting by Tom Scotson.
