The Your Party central executive committee (CEC) met on Monday 20 July 2026 to address the many questions left hanging by the votes of no-confidence passed at the 12 July CEC meeting to replace Jenn Forbes as chair, Dawn Aspinall as secretary and Cassi Bellingham as membership officer.
It should be remembered, as reported on 16 July by Alan Story in The Left Lane, that the votes of no-confidence were proposed by Jo Rust, a CEC member of The Many (TM) slate from the East of England, a long-time Corbyn loyalist and ex-Momentum member.
Since that meeting Sam Gorst, a Liverpool councillor, an independent CEC candidate, and north west CEC member – who many thought to be a Corbyn ally following his social media post celebrating the “burial” of the Grassroots Left after the CEC election results in February – resigned from both the CEC and Your Party a day before the most recent CEC meeting. His departure letter was, in essence, a “plague on all your houses” message.
“CEC members are not being listened to”
Gorst’s letter was then followed by an email noting that despite his request, his resignation letter had not been circulated to all CEC members. Shifting his tone from the resignation letter, Gorst wrote: “CEC members are not being listened to or properly understood by those who currently control the organisation. This only reinforces my concerns about the lack of effective communication, accountability and openness with the party.”
In writing that sentence, Gorst reinforced the central criticism being made of the leadership of the officers’ group by the CEC members who had voted no-confidence on 12 July, namely that the CEC appears neither well organised, nor transparent or democratic.
The most recent CEC meeting on 20 July seems to have demonstrated this in full colour. Reports circulated that complex legal documents regarding indemnification for poor governance and data protection had been “dumped” on CEC members shortly before the meeting and that any points of order raised at the meeting – still being chaired by Forbes, a person who was facing a formal complaint – were “systematically ignored”.
The 20 July meeting appears to have been an out-and-out power struggle. According to one source who attended, there was no meaningful attempt by what remains of the TM slate to conduct the meeting in a democratic fashion. Instead, the TM slate, headed by Jeremy Corbyn and the officers’ group, simply engaged in bureaucratic manoeuvers aimed at not recognising the no-confidence votes that had taken place at the previous meeting. The aim was to keep their hands on the controls of the party irrespective of the consequences.
Meeting called off when it became inquorate
Another CEC member, who is not part of the officers’ group, said they had faced deep hostility. A third described feeling “gaslighted”. In the end, so many CEC members left the meeting early that it became inquorate and had to be halted.
Your Party now faces an ever-deepening crisis. The question remains as to what strategy the CEC members who voted no-confidence in chair Jenn Forbes and others will adopt. Will they continue to engage while Forbes clings on, ignoring the obvious feeling that she is simply not up to the job, or will they deploy another strategy to get Your Party moving?
There can be no question that the political and governance crisis in Your Party will escalate over the coming weeks. Unusually, the sanitised “everything is great” report of the CEC meeting from Forbes had still to be delivered into members’ inboxes 72 hours after the meeting was halted, only finally arriving late in the evening on Thursday 23 July.
In her report, Forbes tried to play down the disagreements and concerns in the CEC meeting, while admitting there were issues that needed resolving, but said that “thanks in part to the work that went into responding to CEC members’ concerns, we now have a clear way forward on governance matters that will leave us in a stronger and, I hope, more collegiate position”! Forbes also said that there was now “an opportunity to reset the tone” and she hoped that the CEC could work much more effectively to take the party forward.
Just over one year since the announcement of the new party that gave hope to millions, the issue is whether it will survive 2026. Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn appeared on a panel on BBC’s Newsnight on the Tuesday night following the CEC and described himself as an “Independent MP”, failing to mention Your Party at any point or the fact that he is its leader in the House of Commons.
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