Your Party has faded into political irrelevance, exposing its internal divisions, questionable purpose and failure to build momentum while becoming a huge distraction for Muslims seeking genuine independent political representation, writes Riaz Sobrany.
This time last year, Your Party presented itself as the next big thing in politics, with reportedly more than 800,000 people signing up as supporters of the project. One year later, it has faded almost into oblivion, currently registering at around 0–1% in national voting intention surveys.
For the best part of a year many Muslims enthusiastically engaged with Your Party as a potential new political home, but now this seems like so much wasted time and effort.
Your Party seemed to die shortly after Jeremy Corbyn’s faction took control of the party’s Central Executive Committee in February, effectively making him its de facto leader. The Corbyn-controlled CEC subsequently restricted the dual-membership arrangements backed at the founding conference, excluding members of several other far-left organisations.
It is noteworthy that in the autumn of last year it was almost impossible to keep up with the number of articles and videos being produced about Your Party. That coverage almost completely dried up after Corbyn’s faction took control of the CEC in February.
This raises big questions about how much public support there really is for Jeremy Corbyn.
He undeniably has a huge personal vote in Islington North, and he will almost certainly win if he contests the seat again in 2029. But the impression I get is that outside his constituency he probably has more than a million admirers, but very few non-Muslims see him as a political leader any more.
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A high proportion of the youth vote and non-Muslim progressives who chanted “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” back in 2019 have now migrated to the Green Party and made it their new political home. That arguably renders a party led by Jeremy Corbyn redundant and superfluous.
However, he still seems to have a sizeable support base among Muslims, despite his shortcomings.
Zarah Sultana
I have believed from the outset that Your Party is really the Zarah Sultana party. After all, she launched the project with a tweet. Jeremy Corbyn initially opposed its creation but later caved in and went along with it, taking the four independent Muslim MPs with him.
Zarah Sultana’s model of Your Party is an ultra-left cocoon for all sorts of Marxist and Trotskyist groups, many of which are not political parties themselves, with Your Party effectively functioning as a front through which they can contest elections.
The defeat of Zarah Sultana’s faction in the elections to Your Party’s Central Executive Committee, combined with the subsequent decision by the Corbyn-dominated CEC to prohibit members of several other far-left organisations from holding dual membership, appears to have resulted in support for Your Party from sections of the far left rapidly melting away.
This may also help explain the dramatic decline in articles and videos about Your Party since February.
If Zarah Sultana’s faction had won control of the CEC, then Your Party would almost certainly be a more active and lively organisation today.
However, an overwhelming majority of her supporters are poor-quality political activists who are already members of other far-left organisations. They are people who, in my view, are incapable of building support in local communities and winning votes in elections, no matter which organisation they join. Relatively few members of the Zarah Sultana faction appear to have significant experience or expertise in electoral politics.
Support for Your Party among Muslims would probably be lower with Sultana in control than it is with Jeremy Corbyn as its de facto leader, although some Muslims will undoubtedly be attracted by her outspoken anti-Zionist stance, despite there being little apparent place within her politics for socially conservative people.
It is unclear what Zarah Sultana’s endgame is. Her pattern of public support appears almost the inverse of Jeremy Corbyn’s: a large number of supporters scattered across the country but relatively few in her own constituency. If she decides to contest Coventry South as a Your Party candidate in 2029, I believe she will be lucky to save her deposit.
In conclusion, Your Party has been a complete circus act since its inception, and a huge distraction from building a genuine independent Muslim political movement.
