Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s fledgling party has revealed a shortlist of potential names for members to vote on at its debut conference this weekend.
The outfit will give supporters at the event in Liverpool a choice between Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance and For the Many – with the result to be announced by the former Labour leader on Sunday.
The conference comes amid simmering tensions after months of internal division, with a dispute between Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana resulting in a botched membership launch and threats of legal action.
Ex-Labour MP Ms Sultana is speaking at a rally on Friday evening, to which Mr Corbyn was not invited, it is understood.
The Independent MP for Islington North will instead host an “evening of politics and culture” which coincides with the event.
A spokesman for the party, so far referred to as Your Party, said it was focused on “a positive member-led weekend” and “Zarah and Jeremy are united in that vision”.
Meanwhile, a number of members were kicked out of the outfit on Friday evening due to their membership of the Socialist Workers’ Party, and will no longer be able to attend the gathering.
The Press Association understands there were concerns that supporters of the SWP were planning to disrupt the conference, though Your Party sources cited their dual membership as the reason for their expulsion.
It is against party rules to be a member of any other national party.
Each of the party’s four MPs – Mr Corbyn, Ms Sultana, Shockat Adam and Ayoub Khan – is expected to give a speech at the event, alongside a series of grassroots community organisers and left-wing politicians from across Europe.
Key issues they hope to be ironed out by the end of the conference include whether the outfit should, for its first two years, adopt a traditional “single leader” model or a “lay-member” collective leadership model.
More than 2,500 members have been selected to attend the event, where supporters will also debate whether the party should back “socialist” independent candidates at the May 2026 local elections.
The party says it now has around 50,000 members in total.
In a bid to set the tone on the eve of the conference, Mr Corbyn hit out at the Government for “creating an economy of stress and despair”.
He said mental health problems have worsened because of Labour’s failure to tackle poverty and bring down the cost of living.
“Britain’s mental health crisis is a product of political choices taken by this government,” he said.
“That includes the refusal to control private rent or end the energy rip-off. That includes their war on disability and sickness benefits.
“And it includes the failure to take real action on the climate crisis causing immense despair for young people.”
Earlier this year, a public spat erupted between Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana after she promoted a system to take payments for their new political outfit, which he disowned as an “unauthorised email”.
This prompted Ms Sultana to claim she faced a “sexist boys’ club” and to say she would instruct “specialist defamation lawyers”, though she later dropped the threat and vowed to “reconcile” with Mr Corbyn.
The former Labour leader later launched an “official” membership portal.
At her rally on Friday, Ms Sultana apologised for “hiccups” in the party’s first few months and said “we do need to get better at working with each other”.
“I would never forgive myself for weakening the party that we desperately need,” she said.
“You might have noticed a few hiccups in this process, some of that has been my fault, and for that, I am sorry, but I want you to know that my intention has always been to ensure that this clarity is led by you, the members, and not MPs.”
But she also took aim at the decision to expel some members with dual memership, telling the event: “I think there is a culture of paranoia at the very top, where disagreements are seen as existential, and when you have a movement that is seeking to unite the left, bringing socialists of every stripe in, you have to allow people to be able to organise.”
