Over the course of a messy, fractious and difficult conference, Sultana sought to draw the curtain on Corbynism as the headline turn of the British left, and set the stage for its next act.
But last weekend was not a complete victory for Sultana the individual or Sultanaism, not least as Sultanism does not yet exist as a fully formed, coherent political platform. Some of her own supporters still have questions about the future of Your Party, and Corbyn remains an influential force; even among Sultana’s most ardent backers, there are few who would relish his complete exit from the project.
It was instead a victory for the members of this fledgling formation who, having watched in horror for months as it teetered on the brink of self-destruction, now voted for a new type of party, fronted by two charismatic and talented politicians but in theory free of the pitfalls of personality politics (members voted against having one leader, instead opting for a collective leadership model led by a Central Executive Committee).
There was still plenty of acrimony in the air over the blustery weekend in Liverpool, as Corbyn and Sultana’s various aides and supporters fought pitched battles via conference motions, WhatsApp groups and press briefings. But there was also genuine excitement and the oft-expressed hope that a better, different kind of political party could deliver a better, different kind of future.
Though in the face of this at-times chaotic conference, it would be easy to write off the whole experiment as typical leftie grandstanding, it should be noted that it is not every day that a political project arrives quite so fully formed. Your Party has a growing number of councillors, only one fewer MP than Nigel Farage’s Reform UK (and there are rumours of it gaining more with impending defections), and similar membership figures to the long-established Green Party before its recent surge.
A different kind of conference
Contrasted with a conventional political conference, the main hall at the Your Party conference looked ramshackle: a handful of makeshift stands and hospitality carts around its perimeter, a smattering of chest-height silver tables in one area and two banks of 60 or so seats arranged in front of a projector screen in another.
The last major conference I attended was Reform’s, back in August, where the first conversation I’d had was with a man employed by Direct Bullion, who directly tried to sell me gold bullion. He was manning a huge conference stand for which his employer, who also has Farage on its payroll, had paid tens of thousands of pounds.
The only private company with a visible presence at the Your Party conference was the radical publisher Pluto Press. It had a small table laid out with books about the history of the left in the Labour Party.
Beyond the main hall was the auditorium, where a few thousand socialists faced a large stage adorned with Your Party banners and a giant screen.
Liverpool nurse and councillor Lucy Williams opened the proceedings with a rousing speech in which she described the party as being “Scouse enough to terrify the establishment”.
Then came the party’s spiritual leader: “Good morning. I’m Jeremy Corbyn, and I’m a political activist.”
In this, the first of two speeches he’d give from the main stage over the weekend – one more than Sultana, as her supporters were keen to point out – Corbyn acknowledged, in a roundabout way, the difficulties the project had faced in getting to this point.
“There’s no handbook on how to set up a political party, but after this experience I might write one,” he joked, prompting someone within my earshot to whisper: “What Is To Be Done *literally* exists”.
“I’m sure there are easier ways we could have done it,” he continued, which is true, but downplayed the many significant ways in which Your Party has tried to be as democratic and inclusive as possible, even in spite of some teething problems.
