Note from ed: this article was written before the Your Party conference – after the chaos of conference weekend, its conclusion is even starker.
It’s Tuesday evening in Manchester, and I’m attending a Your Party rally where Jeremy Corbyn is speaking, just before conference this weekend. Let me preface this by saying I never voted until I voted for Corbyn in 2017. For me, not voting is a statement in itself-a declaration that “I don’t find representation here.” I have always believed him to be a genuine, compassionate man and, in many ways, a brilliant MP. So, I was excited to hear what he had to say.
Unity in the community?
The buzzword of the evening was “unity.” In front of a packed hall, one of the speakers stressed the need to keep “the party” a broad church. “You can’t just kick people out because you disagree on small things,” they argued, before adding:
If you think that Muslim communities are socially conservative, you’ve never met the Catholic Irish working class in this country.
Yikes. That’s a very broad brush.
The speech went on to extol the values of society’s most marginalised, but I couldn’t get past this not-so-subtle contradiction. How do we defend the most vulnerable while also platforming and enabling those with transphobic views – even accepting them as members and representatives? Locally, in Newcastle, activists are furious after Your Party booked a venue, twice, with a history of hosting anti-trans events. And it pains me to say that Jeremy Corbyn’s recent voting record leaves much to be desired in the eyes of many LGBT+ activists. This isn’t just a blind spot. Even from a cynical point of view – it’s just bad politics.
Your Party playing catch up
This was my first time seeing Jezza speak in person-and he’s definitely still got it – he had people on their feet applauding by the end. But let’s be honest: people are skeptical about Your Party, and everyone seems to be playing damage limitation at the moment. When the unpopular sortition process came up, Corbyn addressed it with cautious optimism:
I thought that if we used the sortition process, we’d get a very genuine cross-section of those who are coming… It’s novel, it’s different, let’s see how it goes.
There was plenty of reassuring talk. Your Party is “utterly determined to provide a real political alternative,” we are told. Positive news about local and regional branches is shared:
Every month without fail, they will organise an open public event where they can relate to the issues faced by that community.
Yet all this unfolds against the backdrop a party lurching towards its first conference with no clear agenda. What is Your Party, really? It’s like buying a painting that hasn’t been painted yet. Corbyn claims he doesn’t want to replicate Labour’s bureaucracy, so why is the room full of ex-Labour furniture? It’s easy to attack Labour’s failures, but what, specifically, will Your Party do differently?
Where the rubber meets the road
The next day, I saw where real political energy meets the street. At a budget protest in St. Peter’s Square, I watched demonstrators shield themselves from a clutch of right-wing YouTubers hunting for confrontation. The contrast was stark: a cathedral had been full the night before, but where was that crowd now? Corbyn had rightly warned of the bold, active rise of the right wing. They aren’t just listening to speeches; they are on the ground, shaping the narrative.
It’s all well and good to make speeches, but the disenfranchised people shouting for change in the rain are the very energy Your Party claims to represent. I know the appetite for this party is real; I’ve felt it for years. That’s why it’s so devastating to watch it fumbled so badly. “It’s a shambles,” the man next to me at the rally had sighed. “But I can be a member and still vote Green if they don’t sort it out.”
The internal chaos is palpable. Contradictory briefings fly back and forth. Did Jeremy even want this? Accusations of poor communication… Rumours swirl of him disappearing to his allotment, phone-less, for hours… The horror. Corbyns team deny this, but either way; the man is 76 – let him grow some fucking potatoes! You can love Jeremy Corbyn, know the anti-semitism smears were bullshit, and still acknowledge he wasn’t a great Labour leader. By all accounts, he never really wanted the job. Does he truly want this one?
A hope deficit
The man is a wonderful human and a superb local MP – surely that is enough? The people behind the scenes must realise they aren’t just damaging their own reputations, or enabling others to tarnish their own. This fiasco will be weaponised for years to undermine left-wing politics, betraying everyone who works to give it credibility. They deserve better.
As a longtime supporter, witnessing Your Party’s shambolic launch is a profoundly painful conflict. The rally’s rhetoric of ‘unity’ is starkly undercut by a central, unforgivable contradiction: the polite demand to tolerate intolerance. Corbyn can still command a room, but the chasm between nostalgic appeal and tangible substance is now undeniable. This is more than a communications failure; it’s a fundamental betrayal of principle that discredits the wider left and offers a gift to the very right it claims to oppose.
Thank fuck figures like Zack Polanski are emerging to fill this vacuum. Because, as much as it pains me to say it, Your Party in its current state offers no hope at all.
Featured images via Barold
By Barold
This post was originally published on Canary.