Not unlike successful World Cup football teams, left-wing political parties need a certain esprit de corps in their ranks if they are to grow and make strides forward. Both have many similar requirements. They need a strong sense of pride, loyalty and unity shared by their members. This, in turn, can lead to mutual support, cooperation and motivation among all players on the team. Without that spirit, both will surely fail . . . as some of us have seen too often (though not on Sunday-Monday overnight!).
I attended the inaugural online meeting of the Your Party branch in Norfolk on Sunday afternoon, 5 July 2026. The last meeting here was a very long time ago in the autumn of 2025. The proto branch’s first in-person meeting in August 2025 drew well over 100 supporters. So, was espirit de corps in evidence at Sunday’s meeting?
Yes, most of Sunday’s small crowd attending – 25 at peak – felt very isolated politically and were genuinely worried about a range of issues ranging from housing to medical services to the rise of Reform. They desperately wanted action and organisation. And yes, in time, they might potentially form up as a Norfolk-wide set of YP branches that could generate the necessary esprit de corps which could carry them forward along on the obviously bumpy political road ahead in an area of England few would label “the red belt”.
Yes, they possibly could make some small strides forward in the battle against capitalism and create some hope here. But is it likely – or even a bit likely – under the current leadership of Your Party, either locally or nationally?
The answer is NO, this socialist journalist – and a YP member, still – has concluded honestly and sadly. There is no future in the short term for YP in Norfolk. It is a proverbial “busted flush” here and in many other areas. (See below for further evidence.)
YP branch launches have been a flop
Looking only at various meeting attendance figures (which, of course, is obviously not the only measure of political success), what happened in Norwich mirrors the national picture elsewhere over the past month. That’s when the Isle of Wight kicked off Your Party’s branch formation process in England. At this meeting, the attendance was 30 activists as The Left Lane reported. In Durham a week ago, a total of 7 members pitched up. Well over 100 supporters were active in this locale in 2025.
A YP member from Liverpool, supposedly a centre of YP strength, reported in the Democratic Bloc WhatsApp group on her branch’s launch event over the weekend. The event “was pretty low energy, I felt. (There were) 29 in attendance – not sure we were even quorate to be honest. The chair was asked for up-to-date membership figures and demographics but didn’t have the information,” she wrote. Hardly sounds like espirit de corps here either.
As an aside, it is worth noting that not a single one of these branch launch events likely achieved a quorum. Section 3.d.iii of the Your Party constitution states that a branch inauguration meeting “must be attended by 20%” of local party members. Jo Rust of Norfolk, one of two East of England central executive committee (CEC) members and elected on Jeremy Corbyn’s The Many (TM) slate, claimed last week that Norfolk county has 602 YP members. That would mean 120 YP members, not just 25, would have had to attend Sunday’s meeting for it to be quorate.
Said a long-standing socialist who attended the Norwich YP launch: “This meeting was a flop. Overall, Your Party has been a missed opportunity to establish a badly needed workers’ party.”
He is cancelling his YP membership this week. Many other socialists I know across the UK have done likewise.
Three CEC reps suspended by Corbyn’s pick as YP chair
Meanwhile in Your Party news nationally, three members of its ruling body were suspended from attending a planned CEC meeting on 5 July that was set to discuss the party’s racism policies. The three are Solma Ahmed, who is a Muslim of Bangladeshi descent, Mel Mullings, who is black, and Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who is Jewish. However, as a result of pressure from YP members and groups of party members, such as Democratic Bloc and Connections, Sunday’s CEC meeting was then cancelled. Disciplinary hearings are being held this week and we will report the decision in full if it is made available by the CEC or others.
The suspensions were issued on 3 July in the name of YP CEC chair Jenn Forbes and secretary Dawn Aspinall, members of Corbyn’s TM slate which controls all seven posts on the CEC’s officers group. If there is one thing that will not create espirit de corps in a political party, it is one slate monopolising all the officer posts and shutting out the other one.
Karie Murphy’s likely role in handing out the three controversial suspensions has not come out yet. Murphy, Corbyn’s long-time political fixer, is considered YP’s unofficial CEO by party insiders. She personally selected, for Corbyn’s approval, all of the TM slate candidates for the February 2026 YP internal elections. As explained by The Left Lane, Murphy prepares both CEC meeting agendas and speaking notes for Forbes, Aspinall and other TM members.
Seven years ago, it reportedly took someone with the political heft of the then shadow chancellor John McDonnell to get Murphy sidelined in Corbyn‘s leader of the opposition office. In words that carry an eerie premonition of this week’s YP dispute, an aide had pointed out the “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency” of some of those around Corbyn.
Back to the current disunity. On 5 July, a total of seven members of the CEC – six from the Grassroots Left slate and one independent – released a detailed four-page document titled Formal complaint regarding the suspension of three CEC members. You can read the complaint here.
An appendix to this complaint contains the text of the brief “solidarity speech” that Mullings gave on 28 June to the Socialist Federation conference. This new group was formed “by former Your Party members unhappy with the undemocratic processes and the barriers to the development of socialist campaigning put in place by that party’s leadership headed by Jeremy Corbyn”.
Evidently, giving a speech to the Socialist Federation was one reason why Mullings was suspended. But as you can read yourself, that’s a very puzzling rationale, as there is no criticism whatsoever in her speech of YP or its leaders. The Socialist Federation has released a brief video response to “this tawdry affair” and called for the three suspensions to be quashed immediately.
Some YP activists find it hypocritical that while Mullings was suspended for speaking at the federation’s event, party leader Corbyn was a headline speaker in London on the afternoon of 4 July for a conference organised by the Socialist Workers’ Party, a party proscribed by YP. A complaint letter asks: “Could you please clarify why some CEC members were suspended for speaking or participating in a socialist group’s conference while another [Corbyn] was allowed to speak in a proscribed socialist group’s conference without sanction?”
Conclusion? These suspensions are but the latest in a series of political blunders that demonstrate the utter chaos and lack of democratic functioning at the very summit of Your Party.
Back to our Norfolk launch meeting
So where are we now at? The extent of the YP leadership crisis is only amplified when CEC members interact out “in the field” with grassroots YP members, such as those of us who live in Norfolk. Here are a few brief examples from Sunday’s first branch meeting that has convinced with my own eyes and ears that more and more socialists should be saying – to be very blunt – “please put Your Party out of its embarrassing misery.”
1. Your Party is not a member-led party, it is a CEC-led party
Sunday’s online meeting was chaired by a CEC member from Leicester. Soon after the session began, a number of the 25 local YP members present started to ask some pretty elementary organisational questions, such as “how are we going to meet up in person?” and “how many YP branches will be formed in Norfolk and where?”
The CEC member could not have been clearer. The CEC membership secretary has already decided there will only be one branch for all of Norfolk, he told us. End of story. I am sure I am not the only one who asked themselves the question: “Does this YP HQ membership secretary or CEC member chairing our meeting even know the first thing about the geography, size and politics of Norfolk?”
Let me use this article to briefly educate them. Norfolk is around the sixth largest county in England. A predominantly rural area of almost one million residents, Norfolk has generally poor rural bus services and only one city, Norwich. Even by car, it takes more than an hour and 40 minutes to travel from Great Yarmouth on the east coast to King’s Lynn on the west. The county elects ten MPs.
In short, the CEC’s idea that all 602 YP members should be grouped together in one YP branch is frankly laughable. And so is the CEC’s idea that it knows best how to do political campaigning here in Norfolk. But in Your Party the CEC’s view is what counts.
2. Concentrate on the local – don’t worry about wider party issues or approaches to organising
When the Norfolk meeting began, news of the three CEC suspensions (see above) was just starting to trickle out. Not surprisingly, three or four of the more politically engaged people attending wanted to discuss the matter with their colleagues and raised it. However, the CEC chair did not want us to. Nor did he want us to talk about the problems of branches forming with no access to local email lists or money and what might be practical alternatives for us. I raised those issues and was promptly muted.
One woman at the meeting raised questions about the party’s blueprint for branch formation that calls for voting for local officers to begin only a few days after the launch. “How can we vote for people if I don’t even know them?” she understandably asked. The patronising view of the CEC chair? “We’ve got it all figured out how local organising should be done”. A rather smug approach from those leading a party that has plunged from 800,000 supporters to fewer than 50,000 in less than eight months.
3. At least in Norfolk, there is no serious local YP organisation whatsoever
Almost no one at Sunday’s online launch knew one another. Instead, they were essentially strangers from across Norfolk who were meeting in an 80-minute Zoom call chaired by a CEC member from the Midlands. Ticking a “I want to be a YP member” box months ago is all that united us. Few had attended last year’s two proto branch sessions in Norwich, nor was there evidence of any local organisational infrastructure now in place. Last year the SWPers controlled all of the proto branch’s WhatsApp groups and its email list of contacts. But the SWP is now long gone.
In fact, YP’s only ‘official’ presence in the county is CEC member Jo Rust and she has done nothing either to build YP organisationally. Rust appeared briefly at the start of the Zoom call on a wonky line, posted a brief message in the chat and soon left because, as she explained in a previous email, she had a ticket for a cricket match at Lords.
The meeting ended with a few unanswered messages about how can we meet up in person. In short, a completely predictable dire future awaits . . . at least in the short term.
4. The demographics were all wrong
Of course, older people can make an important contribution to politics and hey, I am aged 78 and am active in lots of political activities. But let’s be realistic. At Sunday’s meeting, there were no people in attendance who were aged under 30, only two or three were under 50 and the average age was well into the 60s. And there was only one person of colour.
One of the three Norfolk lefties who have political experience –all of us aged over 70 – will resign from Your Party this week. A second one is unlikely to put herself forward for an officer post. A third one – namely me – already spends more than 35 hours a week as a co-editor of this website platform. In sum, it’s hardly a recipe for success.
A party with zero espirit de corps
This article could go on for several thousand more words on how Your Party is – in words, in action and in ideology – just the latest example of social democratic reformism, a political trend in steep decline across Europe and the west generally. It offers the working class nothing. It is and will be totally ineffective in the fight against Reform and the far right.
For more than 20 months, this publication and its predecessor have been writing about, reporting on and analysing Your Party (and its predecessor, Collective.) I have made my own decision. Your Party has zero espirit de corps. It is an embarrassment to the socialist cause. Make your decision if you have not already done so. I will only remain a member so that I can, as a journalist, still receive its emails.
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