Most say Your Party should not stand at the Senedd election

Martin Shipton

The majority of people who voted in a Nation.Cymru poll believe that the left wing Your Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana should not field candidates in next May’s Senedd election.

Of the 708 votes that were cast, 422 (59.6%) said the party should not stand and 286 said it should. Software was used to ensure that multiple votes could not be cast online.

The result of the vote has been released as the nascent party has been cast into further turmoil by the resignation of one of the MPs elected as Independents who came together to back it.

Adnan Hussain, the MP for Blackburn said he had quit because of “persistent infighting and a struggle for power” in the organisation.

The departure of Hussain, who is the secretary of the limited company behind Your Party, is 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.”

'Veiled prejudice'

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.

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.

Former Cynon Valley Labour MP Beth Winter was one of three directors of MOU Operations Ltd who previously resigned, the other two being former North of Tyne Labour Mayor Jamie Driscoll and Andrew Feinstein, the former South African MP and anti-apartheid campaigner who challenged Keir Starmer in his Holborn and St Pancras constituency at last year’s general election.

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 told the Guardian that 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.

But 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.

The latest in-fighting will come as a bitter blow to hundreds of left-wing activists who attended an inaugural Your Party rally in Merthyr Tydfil in October.

Differing views

Asked at the time what the feeling was about standing candidates in the May 2026 Senedd election, a Your Party spokesperson said: “We didn't reach a decision on whether or not to field candidates at the Senedd election and there were differing views heard.

“Of the speakers from the floor and online at Saturday's meeting, there were more in favour of being strategic and standing in a few seats where we might stand a chance and won't do more harm than good. We're still taking soundings and weighing things up.”

There has been concern expressed by some that if Your Party stands candidates, the anti-Reform vote on the left could be split to Reform’s advantage,

It has also been suggested that the party could be damaged if it stands and doesn’t perform well.