Zarah Sultana says she has been subjected to a “sexist boys’ club” after a membership debacle within Your Party.
Your Party is barely off the ground, but has already hit a road block after an apparent miscommunication over paid memberships led to Zarah Sultana saying she has been subjected to a “sexist boys’ club”.
It comes after an email was sent out this morning offering membership to the party for £5.
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However, a follow up statement signed by Corbyn, but not Sultana, said that this was not intended and urged people to cancel direct debits.
In a statement shared on X, he said “legal advice” was being taken in regards to the morning email.
This came just minutes after Sultana had posted on X that “right-wing bad faith actors are desperate to claim this link is fake.”
She added: “It isn’t. It’s safe and secure!”
Following Corbyn’s statement, Sultana put out a scathing statement of her own, hitting out at the conduct of the new party.
She claimed she had been subjected to a “sexist boys club” and had been “sidelined by the MPs named” in Corbyn’s statement.
Sultana revealed neither of the emails sent out this week had the “dual authorisation of both myself and Jeremy – which was the agreement made at the start of this process.”
The full statement reads:
I want to clarify the situation regarding the membership system for Your Party.
Neither of this week’s emails had the dual authorisation of both myself and Jeremy – which was the agreement made at the start of this process.
After being sidelined by the MPs named in today’s statement and effectively frozen out of the official accounts, I took the step of launching a membership portal so that supporters could continue to engage and organise. This was in line with the roadmap set out to members on Monday and is a safe, secure, legitimate portal for the party. Everyone who supports us should sign up now.
My sole motivation has been to safeguard the grassroots involvement that is essential to building this party. Unfortunately, I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely. They have refused to allow any other women with voting rights on the Working Group, blocking the gender-balanced committee that both Jeremy and I signed up to.
It is also important to be transparent about why this situation has arisen. I do not believe members will accept Karie Murphy and her associates having sole financial control of members’ money and sole constitutional control over our conference. This undermines the democratic principles we agreed to uphold.
From the outset, we agreed that MOU Operations Ltd – stewarded by Jamie Driscoll, Beth Winter and Andrew Feinstein – would hold and manage funds on behalf of members until the founding conference, at which point they would be transferred to a new entity established democratically. Every penny raised so far has gone to MOU Operations, and this continues to be the case within our new membership portal. This, to be clear, is members’ money – and our members must decide how it is spent.
This arrangement was designed to ensure transparency, accountability and protection against the concentration of financial control in the hands of any one person.
I regret that today’s statement has misrepresented the situation. My actions have been consistent with our shared commitment: to build an open, democratic and member-led organisation. I will continue to fight for a process where members’ money, data and voices are safeguarded, not centralised under the control of one individual.
I am calling on Jeremy to meet with me and agree to make public all agreed structures, processes and decision-making protocols. Doing this will restore hope for our members, and ensure nothing like this can ever happen again. This party is more important than any one person, and we all owe it to the movement to deliver a truly democratic and socialist party.
The democratic founding conference of this party will take place in late November.
I will keep fighting for a minimum programme for maximum democracy, you have my word.
No stitch-ups, no coronations: the members must decide.