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The leftwing Your Party spearheaded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has had a major split after another independent MP involved, Adnan Hussain, quit because of “persistent infighting and a struggle for power” in the organisation.
The departure of the Blackburn MP, who is secretary of the limited company behind Your Party, is yet another blow after renewed disagreements between Sultana and Corbyn, this time over the handover of membership levies.
Hussain was one of four independent MPs who, along with Corbyn, signed a Your Party statement on Thursday night accusing Sultana of unnecessary delay in passing on £850,000 in donations, a move that infuriated Sultana.
On Friday afternoon, Hussain said via X he had spent recent months reflecting on his role in an organisation he had believed would be based on “a commitment to equality, justice and anti-racism”.
He said: “Regrettably, the reality I encountered has been far from this vision. The culture surrounding the party has become dominated by persistent infighting, factional competition and a struggle for power, position and influence rather than a shared commitment to the common good.
“Instead of openness, cooperation and outward focus, the environment has too often felt toxic, exclusionary and deeply disheartening.”
Hussain condemned what he said felt like “veiled prejudice” in the way he and other Muslim independent MPs had been treated within the party, talking about “generalised accusations and offensive slurs”.
He also said he had not been prepared for the “very serious and damaging internal disputes” within Your Party over how it should be structured and organised.
While some observers had wondered whether Hussain and other independent MPs with sometimes socially conservative views were a perfect fit for an organisation set up by Corbyn and Sultana, the letter is a scathing indictment of the chaos that has plagued Your Party, much of it based on disagreements between its two principal figures.
In the most recent spat, allies of Sultana accused other MPs in Your Party of trying to undermine her with the statement on Thursday night, saying the timing, just before Sultana appeared on BBC One’s Question Time, seemed intended to hamper her chances of winning a possible leadership contest against Corbyn.
In response, Your Party sources said Sultana, a former Labour MP who now sits as an independent, was creating unnecessary barriers in arguing that there were legal reasons why she could not immediately transfer all the money from a company of which she is now the sole director.
It is understood there are nonetheless some worries within the party about the timing and tone of the statement.
The slightly convoluted row, one of several to erupt between Sultana and Corbyn’s camps in the organisation’s short history, originates in the fact that when a membership portal was first launched, Your Party had no formal structure or bank account.
The mass of membership levies and donations was thus directed to a newly formed company called MOU Operations Ltd, which now has Sultana as its sole director, with the idea that it would be passed on when Your Party was ready.
Your Party officials say they urgently need the £850,000 to run a conference at the end of this month and pay staff who have been acting as volunteers.
An ally of Sultana said the timing of Thursday’s statement was “damaging and irrational”. “They know they are demanding something she can’t legally deliver. She couldn’t be doing anything differently. It is very frustrating to find us in this position,” the ally said.
A Your Party source disputed Sultana’s arguments of a need for a delay in transferring the money, saying it was “desperately needed” to run the conference.
“The legal advice is that she absolutely can do it and she should do it, but she keeps shifting the goalposts,” they said.
