‘YourParty’ membership launch off to rocky start after inner party dispute By Iain McLean

By Iain McLean

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s ‘YourParty’ membership launch got off to its official start last week, or did it?

An email was sent to those who signed up to the newsletter earlier this year allowing members to officially join the party. However, just four hours later, a second email was issued stating that “an authorised email was sent to all youparty.uk supporters with details of a supposed membership portal”. It went on to say that “the email should be ignored by all supporters. If any direct debits have been set up, they should be immediately cancelled.”

This email was signed by five of the six official ‘YourParty’ MPs, with Zarah Sultana being the notable absentee. This sent supporters into a quandary  over what was actually happening. Was it just a site that was launched accidentally early or some sort of phishing scam?

The answer to this question came just 15 minutes later when Sultana published her own statement on the confusion, which read “After being sidelined by the MPs named in today’s statement and effectively frozen out the official accounts, I took the step of launching a membership portal that supporters could continue to engage and organise.” She then went on to say that she had “been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys club”.

She said that they had hit 20,000 members and that the link was “safe and secure!” on her X profile.

A split this early in the party is nothing short of a PR nightmare for both Corbyn and Sultana. A dispute where the only woman MP was excluded from the official party joint statement could paint a very bad picture for some of their supporters. However, it could also show that perhaps Sultana isn’t on the same page as the other members.

If Corbyn and Sultana can’t get on the same page before next years election, their promised change might fall flat on its face on arrival.