At 11am on the dot, about 1,000 Your Party members, along with a few lurking journalists, were waiting online to find out who would lead the party after a bruising two-week election campaign. “One minute to paradise!”, joked one in the comments alongside the YouTube livefeed.
In the end, they had time to make a brew. A Your Party official entered the comments to inform those waiting that the results would, in fact, begin half an hour later than planned. “I blame Thatcher,” one comrade grumped.
When the results finally came – after a significant amount of detail about voting procedures, mandated organisational strategy and the number of physical ballot papers returned (43) – they were decisive. Jeremy Corbyn’s The Many slate had taken 14 of the 24 available places on the party’s central executive committee (CEC); the MP for Islington North would, despite the collective leadership model adopted at its chaotic inaugural conference, become Your Party’s de facto leader.
In a statement issued almost immediately after the results had been declared, Corbyn was emollient and determinedly outward-looking. “We are at a dangerous moment,” he said. “The fear, divisiveness and racism of Reform should not be appeased. It must be opposed. There is only one way we will defeat them: by working together under a common cause of redistribution and peace.”
But, in private, insiders recognise that Your Party’s ability to oppose anything effectively has been decimated by the incessant infighting that has plagued it from the moment of its inception. Can it now move beyond the far-left fringes and appeal to a wider voter base in the hope of becoming a competitive electoral force?
On current polling, that looks unlikely. Just before Your Party’s first conference at the end of November about 12% of Britons said they would consider voting for it, down from 18% when it launched in July 2025, according to YouGov. A survey by Find Out Now this week put the party at 1%.
“A lot of people on the left are like ‘fuck this’,” said one former member. “There’s a lot of disillusionment and people are just sick of the fighting.”
In the hours after the election result, there was little sign of an end to Your Party’s eternal Squid Game. Zarah Sultana issued a pugnacious statement warning there must be “no more witch-hunts or stitch-ups” and calling for the reinstatement of members who had been expelled.
What now for Sultana, who was elected as a Labour MP in 2024 but has since moved to the “ultra-left” according to some critics. Sources close to the MP for Coventry South said she had no intention of stepping back from Your Party. “She will stay and fight,” said one. “She’ll be fighting with the other seven women that have been elected from Grassroots Left to make sure that the party is as democratic as it can be and to give as much power to the members as The Many will allow.”
While some “headbangers” had been elected, they said, there were some “marginally more reasonable” that Grassroots Left could work with. “One would hope that a line can be drawn and everyone can come together to build a party that the country desperately needs,” they added.
A source close to Corbyn said the election marked the “end of the road for that politics”, adding: “They can row behind members’ decision or they can alienate people as a minority on the CEC.”
Whether the 76-year-old Corbyn has the stomach for the likely fight ahead is unclear. When Sultana announced she was starting a new party with the veteran socialist, Corbyn said only that discussions were ongoing on what would happen next.
“For a lot of people he has this symbolic representation,” said one longtime watcher. “But how much does he want to keep spending his life being the leader of a political party?”
Corbyn’s victory will hearten those who believe You Party must have a big tent and appeal to pro-Gaza voters including the “social conservatives” that Sultana previously said were not welcome. “If the party is to be viable in any way it’s going to have to appeal in areas that could be won by an independent,” said one.
But the surge in Green party membership represents a real threat because it attracts many younger voters who could have found a home in Your Party. Owen Jones, a longtime leftwing activist, is one of those who has switched to the Greens.
He said: “The individuals responsible for the Your Party debacle didn’t seem to understand that the vast majority of left-inclined people looked at it with increasing horror and thought: this has been a truly interesting and riveting car crash to watch in Technicolor and slow motion, but life is too short.
“They thought – there’s a viable alternative, which is winning mass support, so I think I’m going to redirect my precious time and energy over there.”
