Amassing and assembling
What will Your Party do next?
Assuming they are ever established, Your Party branches will have to hold regular local assemblies, open to the public.
Assemblies might allow the tens of thousands of Your Party members to reach the hundreds of thousands of people who expressed an interest in the party.
But this work can’t start until official branches are set up.
What do the candidates for the ongoing collective leadership election think about these assemblies?
And which slate of candidates for Your Party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) are actually going to make the assemblies happen across the country?
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Your Leadership
Road Bloc has covered the launch of Your Party and the run up to its founding conference.
The task facing the party now is to choose its collective leadership.
The Grassroots Left slate of candidates assembled around Zarah Sultana represents a challenge to the Independent Alliance MPs led by Jeremy Corbyn, most of whom are backing a slate called The Many.
When Sultana left Labour, she joined Corbyn and the Independent Alliance. Without getting into all the drama again, it is enough to say that she is no longer a part of that parliamentary grouping but three of the five remaining Independent Alliance MPs did attend Your Party’s founding conference.
The political arguments now come down to party structures and strategy rather than personality. But to some extent the divide is also a matter of policy emphasis, between calls for traditional social-democratic reforms and demands for more radical socialist measures. Grassroots Left, for example, is calling for a republic – a fundamental transformation of the British state.
Given that the interim leadership associated with The Many slate was responsible for the party constitution, their vision for local assemblies should be something they outlined in greater detail. But that hasn’t happened in the course of this election campaign.
Individual candidates who are part of The Many slate have mentioned Corbyn’s own assemblies in his constituency, the People’s Forum. But less has been said about how these differ from the meetings which have been organised by supporters of the Grassroots Left.
The argument from The Many is that the party needs to get “back on track”. Though Zarah and the Grassroots Left slate are not always attacked by name in The Many’s public communications, the clear implication is that they want an inward-looking party – or by their openness to sects joining YP, they would facilitate some kind of takeover of the party and that this clashes with “getting out there” and reaching the masses.
The Grassroots Left argue that the party needs maximum democracy for its members. Though Corbyn is not attacked by candidates who are part of the slate – the Grassroots Left wanted to nominate Corbyn for the CEC, but this has been withdrawn over allegations that his likeness was being used to suggest he endorsed their candidates – the clear implication is that his faction represents a bureaucratic obstacle to what they want to do. And they do call for members to vote for him in this election.
The Many want the CEC, when elected, to then make Corbyn the party’s parliamentary leader. But it cannot be predicted what will happen if The Many slate does not have a majority.
It is suggested that the Grassroots Left might make Sultana the parliamentary leader, but that might lead to a decisive split – maybe not by Corbyn but perhaps by the Independent Alliance MPs.
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Your Branch
Proto-branches have been set up since last summer. There were not yet official local structures for YP members to go out and campaign, and therefore draw more people into the party’s orbit.
Members instead had to find each other through existing social ties and the calling of local meetings. These proto-branches are unofficial and have no rights to membership data or funding from the party, though some have been visited by Corbyn and Sultana.
Once the central executive committee (CEC) is elected, setting up branches becomes possible. The party’s constitution, agreed at its founding conference, does provide a path for branches to be created.
A concern the interim leadership has expressed – though not explicitly – is that although the newly-established branches will be able to act, to get out and campaign, maybe people who are not close to them politically will win the local elections to local positions.
This is framed as a Trot takeover in the localities, but it seems unlikely to happen unless it is what the members want. Because in the proto-branches, the Trotskyist groups are not acting as secret entryists.
Where does this anxiety come from? Is it justified? The answer is maybe.
Your Party is best understood as the Labour Left in exile. When it was in Labour, it would ally with Trotskyist entryist groups against the Labour Right. It would therefore defend Trotskyist groups from being purged.
Now, this ex-Labour Left has no need to avoid purges of the Trotskyists – or, more accurately, purges of some Trotskyists.
The ex-Labour Left around Corbyn is running a party of its own and can set its policy and program, select its candidates for public office. But at the same time, they can’t do without Trotskyist groups and the volunteer labour of their members – canvassing, delivering leaflets, and so on.
We’ve been here before with Arthur Scargill and his Socialist Labour Party, and George Galloway with Respect and the Workers Party. Alliances with revolutionary groups to get electoral projects up and running, followed by disputes, purges, or splits.
The anxiety about entryism is therefore not wholly unjustified but the source of the anxiety can’t be eliminated entirely. Because if there’s no roll-out of a Your Party branch network, presumably there can’t be the assemblies and other outreach which The Many would want to take place?
The ban on the sects is likely to be lifted gradually – even if The Many have a majority on the CEC, do they want to use it to block hundreds of committed activists in an organisation like the Socialist Party from joining? No, indeed the group mentioned by name is usually the SWP.
The rules on dual membership adopted at the founding conference mean that the party will be able to bargain with groups thinking of joining. To condition entry on loyalty to the leadership’s vision for the party.
The Many’s plan seems to be to set up branches first, and gradually, before making it clear that members of the SP and other groups can have a role in the party. The areas where branches will be constituted are those with forthcoming elections.
Grassroots Left pledge “day one” action – but this could not result in the existing proto-branches being recognised, the party’s constitution stipulates that there have to be inaugural meetings.
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Your Action
Let’s get back to what the branches will do if and when they are constituted.
The party’s constitution states:
“All Branches shall run regular public-facing, local community assemblies. These assemblies shall be open, democratic forums, contributing to community activity and party policy development.”
There’s a course of action centred on these assemblies which would let the party recover after its internal elections, immediately refocusing its active members on local and devolved elections in May.
Though Corbyn has proposed it, the Grassroots Left slate is not opposed to the local assembly model. Zarah Sultana was a community organiser for the Labour Party when Corbyn was its leader.
So unity in action, to build and hold these local assemblies, should be possible. And it would be of use to the left as a whole.
Local assemblies can put pressure on the Labour government just by coming into existence. Because any community campaigns emerging from this process will ultimately be directed at winning concessions from the central government.
Assemblies would bring together people in the localities who could then go on to act tactically in election campaigns. This could be of practical help to the left in Labour, the Greens, or other parties, by coalescing anti-Tory and anti-Reform voters. It would not necessarily be a result of the branches taking a position in favour of candidates on a tactical basis – just putting on these assembly events, introducing leftwing voters to each other, will have broader consequences.
So for Your Party itself, the assemblies would give it a unique selling point. A reason to exist which is distinct from Zack Polanski’s ‘eco-populist’ Greens and not an impediment to the pressure which it is putting on Labour.
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Your Area
Should the leadership give direction, Your Party branches could move quickly on foundation to carry out a mass ‘listening exercise’: door-knocking and leafleting to ask people about problems they face, with an invitation to a local assembly to discuss what is to be done.
An accompanying survey would ask a few questions about policy matters and voting intention, allowing these canvassing sessions to gather data on voter priorities as well as recruiting assembly participants.
There are devolved elections in Scotland and Wales in May, but parts of England will not be going to the polls. This Britain-wide listening exercise by the party could therefore be more of a fact-finding mission for the newly-established branches than merely asking for votes.
Where there are local elections, the founding conference committed the party to campaign for needs-based ‘people’s budgets’. The local assemblies would surely play a role in identifying immediate priorities: what is required to improve communities? Which services need rebuilding first?
The party’s founding conference opted for targeted intervention in the local elections, standing where it can win and backing leftwing independents. Branches holding local assemblies can feed into these efforts and could give the party a productive role in local alliances.
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Your Agenda
The assemblies will not be like Your Party’s branch events. Though there may be a welcoming speech from an experienced speaker, the bulk of time is spent in small break-out groups. Members would be listening, answering questions when they arise – aiming to welcome in people who may not be familiar with the formal business of political meetings.
Perhaps the party could run another lottery and make use of its 800k+ contact list to randomly invite people to local assemblies. This method wouldn’t make branches go out on the doors. And it might not invite the general public in to speak. But it could assist with fundraising once assemblies are up and running.
There’s already some familiarity among YP members with the assembly approach to meetings given how most regional consultation events took place before the founding conference.
However this listening exercise needn’t have the purpose of getting feedback on a fixed set of questions. There is not a set of decisions which have to be made by participants on what they are to do in future.
There is a marked contrast between assemblies and branch meetings and the traditional layout of rows of seats, a top table with a few people talking, a Q&A session, etc. It’s harder to meet new people in that format. It has its place, however, when it comes to decision-making.
Assemblies can feel a little less formal to participants but they require a high level of discipline on the part of hosts…
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Your Assembly
An assembly has to be timed exactly: refreshments ready for the arrival of guests, feedback to the room after discussion has taken place, a brief speech at the end thanking people for turning up and asking for a donation to meet the cost of food/drinks.
There has to be the self-discipline to ‘agree to disagree’ on the part of facilitators. It doesn’t mean tolerating disagreeable behaviour. It just means that members who facilitate have to be prepared for an assembly not being a typical party meeting of the already left-aligned.
Door-knocking before the event works as preparation for what is to come for the activists. Since an assembly isn’t a branch meeting, no-one should be expecting a debate over the wording of motions or other formal business relating to the party’s organisation.
Proto-branches may have undertaken some work like this already, of course, since both Corbyn and Sultana have spoken to unofficial groups of Your Party members since the party launched and in the course of the CEC election campaign. But if the party’s rules are to be followed, the thinking behind the assemblies will have to be understood by all active party members.
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Your Rivals
The expectation should be that assembly attendees will include those who are either sympathetic to the left but not currently involved in regular activity (beyond signing up to hear about Your Party) and people who are just curious about it all (some of whom will be already organised in Labour, the Greens, and other parties).
Negative attention from hostile right-wingers may occur, including threats and maybe actual disruption. There will have to be preparation for this, openness involves exposure to these risks.
It could be that the local assemblies don’t emphasise party branding. Not to deny that it is being organised by members of a party branch, but to stress that this isn’t going to be a rally or a recruitment meeting. The point is, you don’t have to join to have your voice heard. Equally, what you may hear isn’t reflective of the members of the local branch because to be in an assembly you don’t have to be a party member.
A fear will be that only left activists or those looking for leftwing votes – various paper-sellers, candidates for Labour and the party’s loyal activists, candidates for the Greens and their loyal activists, etc. – will bother to turn up to assemblies. The only way around this is to gather more people: knock on more doors, leaflet, put up posters.
The real challenge with the assemblies will come not from committed fascists turning up to cause trouble but from the sheer variety of attendees: centrists, those who are merely Reform-curious, and those apparently apolitical local people who are either public-spirited enough that they’re willing to turn up and share their views or hoping to make it all about their particular single issue such as immigration.
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Your Programme
What will the relationship be between the assemblies and the party?
The party founders aim for these events to be consultative, discovering new facts which can be used by the party’s active members to plan future action.
This is not to suggest assembly participants won’t discover new facts themselves – they will learn about the party’s values and how it puts them into practice, they will receive an education about its programme at these events, indirectly.
A party’s programme is not something with which a member should be expected to be in full agreement. What matters is acceptance that the party has agreed to a text and the honesty to explain the party’s thinking as well as their own view.
Your Party’s political statement defines it as a “socialist party” which believes “the working class” should be “at the heart of the social alliance” which it aims to build. It aims to become “a mass party” which is “rooted in the broadest possible social alliance” so that there can be “the extension of democracy over the economy, including the public ownership of key sectors and services”.
This is the theory of change which the party adopted at its founding conference. But the way that the party’s programme is understood won’t just be through the members thinking about it and discussing it, and then passing this wisdom on to assembly participants for their agreement.
Assemblies will not involve people learning through lectures about what the party stands for. Those members making themselves known at these events as working for it or volunteering for it will demonstrate it through their actions, by practicing pluralism.
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Your Credentials
The point of an assembly is not to assemble for the sake of it. The outcome for participants is to be able to act collectively and address the issues in their community. That might mean making representations to authorities, organising a demonstration, setting up an organisation to provide services like a community centre.
So the question naturally arises, what if these non-members decide to do stuff that the party doesn’t agree with? What if an assembly gets out of control, is hijacked by those who would convince us that our enemies are our neighbours, like the ‘remigration’ right?
Because although assemblies won’t be able to make decisions for the party, the future activities of participants will potentially have consequences for branches.
Branches can’t command the assemblies, deciding everything in advance. But they also can’t be seen to tail bad decisions. So although party members might have to bite their tongues sometimes during assemblies, if a branch ends up drawing together a crowd which is led towards actions the party doesn’t support, this will have to be communicated.
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Your Launch
It may be easier to put on these assemblies where the party already has a sitting councillor to draw a crowd or act as a speaker. But that isn’t many places.
Branches will have to be offered training if the assemblies are to go ahead. The leadership starting the whole process will therefore be crucial, with the CEC and party MPs and councillors hosting a big planning call or a series of regional calls to draw in members who have yet to become actively involved in the formation of the proto-branches.
But given some CEC members may want to use their majority to try to revisit other aspects of the constitution, is there really buy-in across all of the party’s tendencies for holding these local assemblies?
The immediate problem is that The Many seem to want a slower and focused launch to the branches and Grassroots Left want a quick and blanket roll-out.
The CEC election will determine what happens next.
It is to be hoped that the candidates of the Grassroots Left, along with independents, are successful in opening up the party.
It may have been possible to have a broad left party of the kind The Many describe. But only if the Greens did not already exist in Britain’s political system. (And even then, every broad left party which has imposed bans on open factions has had the same problem with splitting as “the sects”.)
Even if everything with the launch of Your Party had gone well in 2025, it’s likely that Polanski’s Green surge would have had an advantage: they already have a constitution, branches, and a leftish and anti-war brand identity. They were always going to be ahead of Your Party.
Was the real damage done as a result of Corbyn and Sultana not splitting from Labour sooner? Not necessarily: in 2020, Labour was in opposition. It was the formation of a Labour government in 2024 which opened up space for a new mass party as waves of voters became disillusioned.
It is probably not the case that candidates on The Many’s slate want in their hearts to create a top-down, centralised party – but this is what will happen with barriers to members of left groups participating and the failure to quickly set up local branches.
If they find themselves with a minority on the CEC and unable to get their way, a focus on assembly work is the path to become the inclusive mass party they advocate.
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(Note: background on the working of assemblies is drawn from Hallam’s writing on the subject and experience of these kinds of public meeting.)