Your Party promised new politics – then gave us messy squabbles

The public in-fighting we have seen yet again from Your Party has only solidified my apprehension about getting involved. 

After an initial unedifying public row between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana over membership portals, a new disagreement within the movement threatens to head to the courtroom.

Reports say  that Your Party plans to take legal action against three of its founders, Andrew Feinstien, Beth Winter and Jamie Discroll, directors of MoU Ltd, a holding company that manages data and funds on behalf of the party. 

According to the Guardian, citing senior party sources, the directors of MoU have missed an agreed deadline to hand over membership data and £800,000 in donations, holding supporters’ funds ransom and undermining the party in the process. 

Messy doesn’t even cover it.

This comes after the incident last month when those who had signed up for updates from the new left-wing movement  – like I did – received an email prompting them to become paying members. 

Shortly after, we received another email – this time signed by Jeremy Corbyn, among others – warning us not to follow those instructions and that legal advice was being taken.

Like many, I assumed that Your Party had been targeted by hackers and I was relieved that I hadn’t handed my own payment details over. I never imagined that this back-and-forth would actually be the result of public bickering – and it seems there won’t be an end to that any time soon. 

Your Party came at what seemed like the perfect time. Now more than ever, we need a party to challenge the status quo and look after workers, minorities, and public services, rather than simply coddling the rich and scapegoating migrants. 

The inclusion of independent MPs whose constituents elected them on a pro-Gaza mandate only deepened my hope that we could have a proper political force in this country that is genuinely pro-Palestine.

But this ongoing squabbling is deeply embarrassing for anyone who believed in this endeavour. It reeks of petty student politics to be debating and name-calling on social media for the entire nation to see. 

It diminishes public trust in Your Party as a serious political entity and ultimately paints seasoned politicians like Corbyn and Sultana as unprofessional and unreliable in the eyes of people like me who believed in the cause.

Especially as we come closer to the planned first national conference in Liverpool next month, the childish infighting threatens to overshadow the event. 

If Your Party cannot even control themselves internally, there is little hope for their policies.

When the left is presented as a rabble of squabbling, immature activists rather than genuine representatives of the people it pushes people away from our important causes – cementing the belief that real, grown-up politics is only found in the centre-right.

But more than that, this in-fighting is actively dangerous and irresponsible at a time like this, undermining the change they promised and the rigged system they vowed to fix.

We have nationalism dominating the streets in the form of far-right riots and flags at every turn. Anti-migrant rhetoric is no longer considered extreme – it is the bedrock of mainstream politics. 

The nation has just seen its second summer engulfed by far-right violence and disorder. 

Anyone who is visibly other, like me, feels less safe than ever. Our homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship feel like targets in a climate where anything that appears foreign is unwelcome.

Now, more than ever, we need a unified, legitimate and highly effective political force to counter the far-right. 

Not ones who can’t even deal with internal conflict and handle money efficiently. 

Those of us who are vilified and maligned by those with the largest political platform need to find solace and recognition elsewhere – and I thought Your Party was going to offer us that. 

Bickering and chaos is only going to do one thing – bolster the far-right, who rally around a single agenda of nationalism. All while those on the other end of the political spectrum argue about semantics and technicalities.

But whatever the disagreements, there are pressing issues of safety and security for those of us who bear the brunt of the far-right’s resurgence.

The asylum hotel protests and the violence and disorder that followed them have made many of us fear leaving our houses. The flag campaign has made people like me uncertain of our place in the country we call home.

On top of that, turning on the TV and radio to hear our politicians perpetuate anti-migrant rhetoric on a daily basis is dehumanising and exhausting. 

I will probably vote Green in the next election, as, under new leader Zack Polanski, they feel like the only remaining viable left-wing voice in our political system, having grown exponentially this autumn, with a 50% rise since Polanski’s election, reaching over 140,000 members. 

But a part of me has lost all faith in electoral politics altogether. 

If the likes of Corbyn and Sultana – justice-driven campaigners for important causes that I care about – can be driven to scrapping on social media and taking legal action against their own founders, then what does that say about the system that made them?

Sadly for me, Your Party has proven itself to be anything but, more than once. 

It seems more about egos and loyalties than it is about genuine representation – let alone the political revolution I thought it would be. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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