“The Many” claims a false mandate

On 26 February, Your Party announced the results of elections to its Central Executive Committee (CEC). The Corbyn-aligned slate, The Many (TM), won fourteen seats, compared to seven for Grassroots Left (GL), plus two additional seats held by candidates aligned with it. One independent was elected, Liverpool Community Independents councillor Sam Gorst. TM declared this a “huge mandate”, but this is far from true.

TM secured just 38% of first-preference votes, compared to GL’s 29% and independents’ 33%. And when independent votes transferred, they broke 61/39 in favour of GL. If there had been a more proportional voting system, it would have shown the membership’s preferences fairly evenly split between two competing visions of the party.

TM’s majority was delivered by the decision by the Corbyn faction, who control the party machine, to use the Imperiali quota in the STV count rather than the near-universally-used Droop quota. This came only after the endorsements stage suggested that TM might lose control. Imperiali sets an unusually low threshold for a candidate to be elected and is widely discredited precisely because it helps the largest minority. The results bear that out.

For example, in the North East, TM took the final (their second) seat with just 37% of the remaining vote, while two other candidates (one GL, one a left-leaning independent) together held 63%. The quota did the work. Overall, The Many likely gained two or three seats it would not have won under Droop, while Grassroots Left lost three or four. There is no “huge mandate” for TM.

The inequality of the contest was further exacerbated by TM’s access to YP-related resources. TM enjoyed use of extensive email lists unavailable to other candidates. Members who had never signed up to TM were bombarded with increasingly shrill messages warning that anything other than a vote for Corbyn’s slate would mean “more infighting, more purity tests, more sectarianism”. GL was accused of “attacks on allies”, meaning criticism of Independence Alliance MPs for socially conservative positions on abortion and LGBT+ rights, or, in Ayoub Khan’s case, calls to use troops to break the Birmingham bin workers’ strike.

Context

This is the political context in which the new CEC will now operate for two years. It is striking that TM repeatedly promises to “get the party back on the rails”, although it has never been clear when this train was ever on the tracks. Anyhow, the Corbyn faction has been at the controls the whole time, so if the train has been in the sidings for seven months, that is their responsibility. In practice, their support rests heavily on passive members mobilised for internal ballots, not on an organised, active base.

TM’s and the Corbyn faction’s control of the CEC will have consequences. The Corbyn faction spent the election campaign denouncing proto-branches as dominated by “left sects” which, they claimed, excluded ordinary members. It is therefore unlikely that this CEC will move quickly to establish real branches. More likely is delay: there are rumours of further assemblies. Expect elongated processes and bureaucratic manoeuvres designed to cut across existing local organisation. Proto-branches standing candidates in May will not do so as Your Party.

Faster

Meanwhile, others are moving faster. In Chingford, Faiza Shaheen (the deselected Labour candidate who stood as an independent in Chingford in 2024 and who intends to run again in 2029) and her associated Chingford and Woodford Green Community Independents are standing nine council candidates in May. She has stronger links to the Green Party than to Your Party. Shaheen has campaigned alongside Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is reportedly considering a parliamentary run in neighbouring Walthamstow. There is a real prospect that the Greens will provide a more effective umbrella or at least ally for community independents than Corbyn’s still-shapeless project.

The same Green drift is visible on parts of the left. The SWP swung unconditionally behind the Greens in Denton and Gorton and presumably will continue to back them even where Labour is best placed to keep out Reform. In doing so, it risks helping to dismantle the labour movement’s political wing while replacing it with a party with no chance of accountability to the organised working class.

Faction

With the CEC secured, Corbyn’s faction is likely to move to make him “parliamentary leader”, with promises of “reuniting our multiracial coalition” with socially conservative Gaza Independents. What this means for policy on trans liberation, LGBT +rights more generally, and abortion rights is far from clear. There has certainly been nothing on LGBT+ issues on The Many’s campaign website. Despite all Corbyn’s talk of a “member-led party”, his office will tighten control over the organisation. The conference was offered a false choice on dual membership; the softer option was adopted, but it now falls to the CEC to decide which organisations are “approved”. That is a recipe for future exclusions.

The GL CEC members are beginning to formalise an organisation. They have held two online meetings and are discussing holding a conference and insisting that branches be the core of the party. Whether they can sustain that fight is unclear. Some activists are drifting to the Greens; others are dropping out altogether. A poor result for proto-branch candidates in May’s elections may accelerate this. But as things stand, the CEC result may not yet have settled the argument about what Your Party is for.