On the weekend of 29th and 30th November , the founding conference of Your Party took place in Liverpool. It was built of the need for the creation of a party organization to the left of Labour – which is in government and implements a program of austerity, cuts, attacks on democratic freedoms and social movements, and support for the genocide of the Palestinian people promoted by Israel. Your Party was born with 55,000 members, being the largest openly socialist party created in Great Britain since the 1940s, when the Communist Party took off after the USSR entered World War II. The Conference had 2,500 delegates and was marked by controversies and political disputes – which in fact have been present since its early creation  process.

July 2025 – The initial steps

Jeremy Corbyn is the last Labour leader before the current (and Prime Minister) Keir Starmer and, until then, the main figure symbolizing left-wing opposition to the Party’s rightward shift and its profile in the government. At the beginning of the legislature, Corbyn and 5 other MPs who were elected as independents (against Labour), with a platform focused on denouncing the genocide in Gaza, formed the Independent Alliance to act in Parliament. In early July, at a meeting of this group with other MPs who were still in Labour (including Zarah Sultana, who was sanctioned by the Party for her successive votes against the Government in Parliament), the idea of ​​creating a new left-wing party was raised, but without concrete steps or planned timelines. This was a very initial idea, which the group viewed to pursue with a long-term perspective (aiming at the General Elections which, barring anticipation, could happen by 2029).

Sultana had other plans: a party to be organized as soon as possible, with a profile focused on intervention in social struggles (and not merely electoral ones) and more anti-capitalist/radical. Soon after the meeting, Zarah announced her split from Labour and, subsequently, the creation of the new party. From that moment on, Corbyn and his group showed discomfort with the publication and acceleration of the initiative. But the receptiveness of the idea among the general public was quite positive. At the end of that month, Corbyn and Sultana launched a pre-foundation website, with the provisional name Your Party. In the first few hours, the party draft project reached 100,000 members – and a few days later it had exceeded 800,000.

September 2025 – parallel launches and nearly a rupture

Even despite the positive response and the clear political space, everything moved very slowly. Fundamentally due to the contradiction between the mobilization potential of the project and the concern on the part of the leadership group to maintain control. On September 13th, a far-right march led by the racist Tommy Robinson put 150,000 people together on the streets of London. It became clear that the hesitation and lack of dynamism in the creation of the Party were leaving the space of disillusionment and opposition to the government open for the far-right.

Zarah Sultana complained that Corbyn’s group controlled the whole apparatus – from the list of names to the finances, etc. – and prevented anything from moving forward. Less than a week after Tommy Robinson’s demo, Sultana launched a parallel Your Party website, requesting re-registration, formal membership, and payment of monthly dues, reaching over 20,000 members. Corbyn responded with an official Your Party email urging people to ignore Zarah’s email, calling it a “fraud.” The new Party project seemed to have gone down the drain.

Hundreds of thousands of workers, young people, immigrants, activists, and other social sectors in struggle have placed their hopes in this project – which became even more urgent with the growth of the far-right in the country. Not only Robinson’s march – but the fact that Nigel Farage’s party (Reform UK) was leading all opinion polls and experiencing strong growth. After a lot of pressure and public criticism about everyone involved, Corbyn and Sultana came to an understanding, unified the websites and data, and scheduled the Founding Conference for the end of November. But from the beginning, two blocs were clear: on one side, Corbyn’s (and Independent Alliance), with a less left-leaning policy on economic and social issues (the trans issue, for example), and with a less pluralistic, organic, and democratic operating model. And on the other, Sultana’s (with most of the socialist left-wing groups) – advocating nationalizations and a more clearly anti-capitalist economic program, and a more dynamic, vibrant, and democratic party model.

Liverpool Conference: Polarized and Bureaucratized. With a victory for the left and the launching of the Party

For the Liverpool Conference, which would define the statutes, political manifesto, and even the definitive name of the Party – 2,500 delegates were defined (theoretically by “sortition”). But in the Conference voting, all members (even those not present) could vote, although the vast majority were not registered for voting on the website or even aware of it.

On the eve of the Conference, delegates and members of the SWP (a British Trotskyist organization) were notified of their expulsion, based on a clause that does not allow a member of Your Party to also belong to other tendencies or organizations. The detail is that this rule would only be voted on Sunday, and it ended up being defeated by approximately 70/30%. Furthermore, in the tabling of the proposals, there was always a loophole that – in case of victory of the left-wing bloc’s proposal – would allow the leadership to have the final say in some way when it came to implementation. Even in the vote on the party’s name, the proposal put forward in several plenary sessions across the country, “Left Party,” was not even included among the options – for reasons that were far from convincing.

The first day of the Conference was quite tense – and the possibility of a rupture was real. Zarah Sultana left the Conference as a sign of boycott early on the first day. But fortunately, on the second day the Conference regrouped and Zarah returned. She gave a powerful speech, calling for unity and praising Corbyn’s role, but clearly demarcating their differences in policy and operating model. Corbyn closed the Conference announcing that the official name would remain “Your Party,” and gave a speech defending unity with a strong internationalist tone, speaking of Trump and his threats to Venezuela and Colombia, the crisis in Sudan and, obviously, Palestine. It is worth highlighting the strong presence of international issues, with representatives from the German Die Linke and France Insoumise – in addition to mentions of international topics in many of the interventions.

The left won the main votes of the Conference. In addition to the issue of “dual party affiliation,” other topics voted on included the leadership model – where the proposal for collegial leadership won over the traditional model (strongly defended by the leadership) by approximately 52% to 48%. The definitions that the party is “clearly socialist” and that “the party’s alliances are centered on the working class” (versus one proposing “broad fronts”) were approved with approximately 80% of the votes.

The Greens occupy part of the political space in the reorganization

Also in September, the Green Party’s new leader was elected, Zack Polanski, with a very left-leaning profile – which completely changed the face of the party and made it an important piece in this reorganization of the British left. Polanski is an environmental activist (he was even arrested in 2019 during actions by the direct action group X Rebellion), having been elected “city councilor” for the Greater London area and always with a profile much further to the left than the rest of his party. Charismatic, Polanski defends an agenda of “taxing the rich” and ending austerity policies, as well as defending immigrants and refugees, combating xenophobia and racism, defending individual freedoms and denouncing the genocide in Gaza – always making clear his LGBTQIA+, Jewish and environmentalist status in defending his positions. Controversial, his trajectory has some peculiar elements, such as the revelation that he sold women’s services for “breast enlargement through hypnosis and the power of the mind“— for which he has publicly apologized.

But the fact is that the Greens, under Polanski’s leadership and profile, have occupied part of the space initially occupied by Your Party — especially among young people and radicalized anti-capitalist sectors. The Greens had already sheltered part of the generation that left Labour after the rightward shift and the collapse of Corbynism, but they have made a qualitative leap since September — jumping from just over 50,000 members at the time to nearly 200,000 currently, already bigger than the Conservative Party. Furthermore, in all polls, they are about to overtake Labour in second place in national preference, behind Reform UK. When I was saying goodbye to my 13-year-old son to go to Liverpool to attend the Conference, he asked me, “Why don’t I join the Greens? Zack Polanski is a really cool guy”—which shows the penetration they have achieved among the broadest segments of youth.

The fact is that, despite Polanski and the honest and combative sectors that are now in the Greens — this is not a socialist left-wing party. Several of its parliamentarians are not committed to workers’ agendas—especially its representatives in the House of Lords. They run an important city, Bristol, where they implement cuts and austerity measures in the Council (blaming the impositions of the central government—which do exist, but they don’t stand up against them).

In short, the Greens are also an expression of the reorganization process within the British left. As the old saying goes, “in politics there is no empty spaces” — the Greens took advantage of the lack of dynamism and confusion within the YP and found their place. It is now necessary to work with them, without sectarianism, engaging in dialogue with their rank and file, which, for a consequential struggle, requires a party with stronger ties to the working class and social movements – so that we can occupy it again.

Next steps: Taking Your Party to the streets, struggles, and elections

The great victory of that weekend was the launch of the Party. Now there is a big left-wing, working-class, and socialist party in Great Britain. The task now is to increasingly build this party in the streets, among the youth, in the struggles of oppressed and environmental sectors.

Two days after the Conference a major campaign against the far-right was launched, called the Together Alliance. This initiative brings together dozens of unions, movements, and personalities – including famous bands and artists. This campaign is building a mega national rally against the far-right in March (2026), and the idea is that it will be qualitatively bigger than the racist rally of Tommy Robinson and the far-right. Your Party must throw itself into building this rally and intervening on it with a large bloc.

In addition, local elections are planned in several councils across the country. As defined, YP will field candidates or support other independent or left-wing candidates (to be defined in each location), positioning itself as an alternative to combat the rise of the far-right. While this article was being finalized, the largest individual “donation” to a party in British history was announced – a billionaire from the “crypto market” donated a staggering 9 million sterling pounds to Reform UK – demonstrating that powerful sectors of the financial bourgeoisie are the major sponsors of the international far-right.

Your Party has its contradictions. In this sense, it shares similarities with the Brazilian PSOL (and other left-wing formations of this nature) – it has sectors with a reformist, class-conciliation strategy, who aim for the building of a more electoral party without a clear independent and anti-capitalist profile. And it has serious problems in its leadership – reminiscent of how Momentum operated during the heyday of Corbynism, even part of the team is the same. But on the other hand, as became clear during the Conference, it has a combative rank and file base and a project to build a party of action and social struggle. There is room to contest the leadership of the party, and this will be done through daily intervention in social struggles. This is the way to combat the growth of the far-right in England, Brazil, or anywhere else: an independent, anti-capitalist alternative of the workers and the oppressed people, unafraid to show its face. Intervening in struggles with its profile and program – without relying on class conciliation and fully independent of governments that, even under a “leftist” banner, implement cuts and austerity policies that will fuel neo-fascism and its variants. May Your Party rise to these tasks – we cannot and will not fail!

Marcio Musse is a member of the MES International Commission residing in the UK, a member of Your Party, and was a delegate to its founding Conference.