Your Party will put working class ‘back at heart of politics’ – Sultana

Your Party will put the working class “back at the heart of politics”, Zarah Sultana said, as she warned fascism is “growling at the door”.

The Independent MP for Coventry South accused Nigel Farage of “peddling racism” to distract people from his “real agenda”.

Co-founder Jeremy Corbyn also said the new political party must offer something “very, very different” from the “simplistic appeal” of the Reform UK leader.

‘Internal discussions’

The Islington North MP added that Your Party must not “descend into endless internal discussion” and instead become “a force for good within our society”.

The pair put on a united front as they spoke at The World Transformed conference in Manchester on Friday.

Their appearance follows a public row between the leaders over the party’s membership system, with Ms Sultana claiming she had been subjected to a “sexist boys’ club”.

In reference to the party’s rocky start, Ms Sultana compared herself and Mr Corbyn to Liam and Noel Gallagher, insisting “the show is back on the road”.

“If they can do it, of course me and Jeremy can,” she added.

In her speech, Ms Sultana said people should be “f****** furious” about NHS waiting lists and the cost of living.

Vacuum 

She added that a vacuum has opened in British politics, with people turning to the far-right because of it.

“The truth is, Reform is just another wing of the political establishment.

“Funded by billionaires and aristocrats, fronted by a millionaire stockbroker, an ex-public school boy, Nigel Farage.

“He is peddling racism to distract us from the real agenda, more privatisation, more deregulation, more handouts for the rich, more cuts for everyone else.”

Ms Sultana continued: “What we are building with Your Party was never about me or Jeremy, it’s about something much bigger, because the stakes are so high, fascism is growling at the door, and if an election was held today, Nigel Farage would be your Prime Minister.

“We cannot allow that to happen. We have to stop Farage. We have to stop the far-right from taking power. And this is how we build power in our communities, how we give people hope, and how we make people’s lives better.

“I’ll keep speaking up for democracy, for the grassroots and for a movement that puts the working class back at the heart of politics.”

Your Party has had members sign up across the country, with membership levels “slightly higher” in London and the North West, Mr Corbyn told the conference.

He added: “We need to be organised in every part of the country.

“When we’ve organised a local group, let’s make sure we don’t descend into endless internal discussion.

“Internal debate is important, of course, and working out roughly what you’re doing.

“But above all, let’s make sure we are 100 and 1,000% relevant all the time to the community that we’re involved with, and to make sure we don’t depart from the straight and narrow, we all make sure that in every one of our branches, we have at least one open public event every month where the local community is all invited to have a discussion about the campaigns we need to make -campaigns, local issues, local transport, local education, whatever it happens to be – and then feed that all in to a policy-making process that we become a force for good within our society.”

Challenge racism

Mr Corbyn continued: “Let’s make sure that we, as we grow YourParty.uk, not only obviously challenge racism and the racist ideology that goes with it, but we also look at how the appeal, the simplistic appeal of Farage, (Marine) Le Pen, (Geert) Wilders and so many others has currency.

“It gains currency because they go into any community where the schools are underfunded, where the hospital is overcrowded, where the housing is expensive, where the landlords are over-powerful, where wages are low, where insecure jobs are the only ones on offer, where drugs take over in a society that’s lost its soul because it’s lost its industries and lost its heart and lost its home.

“They take over because of that. We have to offer something very, very different.”