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Prominent Your Party politicians sign ‘no expulsions’ petition

In response to Your Party (YP) expelling members on the eve of the conference, several prominent politicians and activists in YP have signed a petition demanding ‘no expulsions’:

Your Party announcement ‘Undemocratic’

It proved controversial when YP first announced that members would not be allowed to hold membership with other parties. In part, it was controversial because YP was being sold as an initiative to unite the British left to pursue a socialist agenda.

Addressing this controversy in September, Jeremy Corbyn told Skwawkbox that the rule would only apply to ‘nationally registered parties’, which meant groups like the Liverpool Independents could sign up.

Crucially, John Rees of Counterfire was assured by Corbyn that the ban would only relate to national parties which are registered with the Electoral Commision. As noted below, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) are not registered with the Electoral Commission:

As such, then, it’s unclear precisely what’s going on.

While there are certainly those who oppose the inclusion of the SWP, it’s notable that members haven’t voted to bar them, and the reasons given for their removal don’t seem to hold up. This is a problem for a new party which is selling itself as the democratic alternative to the mainstream parties.

The conference begins

This weekend, YP begins its founding process, welcoming thousands of members to hear, deliberate, discuss and decide the structures of this new, fully democratic political party. However, it was already marred by members being barred — and in one instance forcibly removed by security — apparently on the orders of Karie Murphy.

As Jeremy was speaking to the room about working together, learning from mistakes, learning from overreach, learning from each other, a ‘disruptor’ was reportedly removed from the conference.

Hopefully the petition will bear fruit and it will be a sign of better things to come.

Featured image via their website

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.