Corbyn And Sultana Barred From Leading 'Your Party' As Members Will Front It Themselves
3 min read
Members of 'Your Party' have stopped a potential leadership contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana after voting in favour of a 'collective leadership' option instead of the 'single leader' model.
As PoliticsHome revealed earlier this week, members were given the choice between a single leader, who could be any successful candidate, and a ‘collective leadership’ option.
The members voting online have voted in favour of the 'collective leadership' option by a tight margin, with 51.6 per cent in favour of collective and 48.4 per cent for single leader. Turnout among all members was just 16 per cent.
A Your Party spokesperson said: "This vote shows that we really are doing politics differently: from the bottom-up, not the top-down.
"In Westminster we have a professional political class increasingly disconnected from ordinary people, serving corporations and billionaires instead of the communities they are supposed to represent. With a truly member-led party, we will offer something different: democratic, grassroots, accountable."
Sultana – who backed the 'collective' option – said: "I have fought for maximum member democracy since day one. Seeing members choose collective leadership is truly exciting.
"Together, we’re building a new socialist party – radically democratic and powered by a mass movement. This party will be led by its members not MPs. This is only the beginning."
Corbyn had signalled that he would favour a single leader and would have been likely to stand for the position.
The collective option will now see the chair and deputy chair of the party’s central executive committee (CEC), both of whom must be lay members, lead the party. MPs will be barred from leading the party until 2027.
Under the option of having a single leader, an elected representative or an ordinary member could have led the party.
The CEC elections this week were brought forward by a month. The contests will start in January and end in February rather than March as previously planned.
At around 4.30 pm on Sunday, the result of the vote among all members on four options for Your Party's permanent name will be announced – Your Party, Our Party, For the Many, or Popular Alliance.
The new political party being founded by Corbyn, Sultana and pro-Gaza Independent MPs is holding its founding conference in Liverpool this weekend, which has been marked by open factional infighting so far.
On the eve of conference, Corbyn and Sultana held separate events. Sultana then boycotted the first day of the conference after certain members – including one from her team of close supporters – were barred from entering the hall by what she called "faceless bureaucrats".
