There are countless examples of undemocratic, opaque, unaccountable practices of the central organising group in Your Party that contributed to me cancelling my membership subscription in April. The decision taken by The Many faction to use their numerical majority on the party’s centra executive committee to monopolise all the key officer roles, alongside the appointment of a paid but anonymous party secretariat, signalled the beginning of the end of my participation in this project.
The most insurmountable failing that I identify of Your Party is the huge gulf the central organising group have placed between themselves and the activist core. Living on the Isle of Wight I probably feel inherently more distant from the centre of action than most comrades elsewhere in the UK. It is why I want to feel I am being informed and listened to by the people who are closer to the heart of the decision making.
When I learned, in the second half of 2024, of early developments to form a new party around Jeremy Corbyn, I was keen to get involved. I hooked up with other independent socialists and got to hear about the efforts of some of those people attempting to make a significant contribution to an exciting new project that was quietly emerging. It became evident very early on that the small core of organisers close to Corbyn were unwilling to devolve power and responsibility in the embryonic party to a broader network of socialists.
The transformation of capitalism to socialism is dependent upon working class people assuming greater power over the affairs of society. A transformational party should embody that fundamental requirement. I felt neutered in Your Party. I was a member of one of the Trotskyist parties between 1996-2003. Many of the independent socialists I network with have undergone similar journeys. We understand that the left needs to adapt and rebuild for the 21st century. The Leninist and Trotskyist milieu, for all its admirable qualities, remains chronically fragmented and painfully unimaginative. The mighty collectivist bastions, embodied most potently by the likes of the mining and shipbuilding communities, have evolved into a new working class with different traditions, different rhythms.
Left in limbo by Your Party’s leadership
The social democratic parties have consistently demonstrated their ineffectiveness when confronted with capitalist state power. Empowering activists who are working to find some solutions – and building a structure around them – should be the starting point of a new party. We have all been left in limbo by the central organising group, which has failed to identify that core need.
The Labour Party leadership wanted no more than an army of canvassers, mobilised at the appropriate times to put in a shift for their roster of polished electoral candidates. Your Party leaders appear to be cultivating something equally uninspiring. Despite that, much of the past 18 months has been very rewarding for me. I have collaborated with UK socialists in a diversity of online communities and organisational initiatives. It has confirmed to me that a smart, committed community of socialists is in existence.
Comrades are mapping a way forward with the limited resources at their disposal, making collective decisions and building vital networks. These networks contributed as significantly as the aloof bureaucrats running Your Party to my decision to quit the party. We have all felt strengthened by our interactions with one another. Connections, Members Charter, and other groups are taking conscious steps toward the formation of a new party. At a recent meeting one comrade observed that Your Party had provided a comprehensive education in how not to assemble a new party of the left.
These are valuable lessons to absorb, though they remain a source of some consternation. Though I desire us to proceed tentatively, I feel more confident than at any previous time that we can begin to convene the new kind of socialist party that modernises the left.
