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Zarah Sultana pushes for ‘maximum democracy’ in Your Party

The socialist Your Party is starting to take shape, with regional assemblies taking place across the country. Zarah Sultana is one of seven MPs in the fledgling political movement, and she’s been vocal on what shape the party’s internal democracy should take. In aid of that, she’s now posted 12 proposals:


Maximum democracy

Sultana’s proposals include:

  • People’s Whip: Conference is the supreme sovereign, democratic body of the party. Decisions should be binding on elected representatives at all levels. Future conferences should have delegates elected by all member meetings.
  • Executive of members not MPs: CEC positions must all be ordinary positions that everyone can contest (not reserved for MPs) to ensure after conference the leadership is democratic and accountable. The timetable must be brought forward to hold elections by the end of the year.
  • Let all socialists unite: Dual membership should be allowed; lowering age to 14, allow people living abroad to join as international members. Membership for those who live in the UK not just those who reside/ right to vote — there must be solidarity with our migrant communities.
  • Youth Section must be the engine of the Party: A formal youth section must be established. Our young members cannot be tokenistic, they are integral to our party.
  • Build socialism in Scotland: It is the right of the members in Scotland to found the Scottish party, to decide on its structure and its relationship to Your Party UK.
  • Towards a socialist Wales: Members in Wales have the right to establish the Welsh party, and to shape its structure and define its relationship with Your Party UK.
  • Only members should decide who represents them: Open Selection, Mandatory Reselection, and Right to Recall. We cannot have a Labour Party 2.0, no backroom deals, no fiefdoms, no coronations.
  • Build social power in our communities: Local branches should get 50% of membership fees and access to data so branches can organise effectively.
  • Alternative leadership models must be voted on: Members should decide leadership structure, not MPs. As well as sole leader, this may be either co-leadership or collective leadership, to be decided at conference.
  • Scottish STV system for democratic internal elections: All internal party elections and candidate selections should be conducted using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system under the Droop quota; this method is regarded as the most democratic.
  • Full transparency and accountability: Independent oversight of sortition for this conference and for all internal elections; internal audit of funds spent and a treasurer elected by One Member One Vote (OMOV).
  • Amendments from assemblies must be put to a vote: All amendments submitted to founding documents should be published and made accessible. Those amendments that garner 25% of assembly submissions should be voted on conference floor.

Featured image via Twitter / X

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.