Shockwaves have gone through the left at the row between Your Party’s leaders. John Rees says the answer is to organise from below

After signing up over 800,000 supporters, the new left party launched by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, temporarily christened Your Party, looked set for a spectacular debut on the political scene.

All it had to do was turn those supporters into members, hold a founding conference, choose a name, and get set for next May’s elections. But now a public row between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana and a botched membership launch is threatening to blow up the new party on the launch pad.

There is a great deal of upset and anger from Your Party supporters. This isn’t a question of people necessarily taking sides in this argument (although of course many will) but reflects a sense of frustration that those at the centre of building this party are failing so spectacularly. As it was, the glacial pace of developing the party was creating major tension. But for it to explode publicly like this, only days after the left faces new challenges from the biggest far-right demo in British history which took place last Saturday, is irresponsible.

Many on the left, and now many in the mainstream press, are asking how this could happen. Part of the answer lies in the over-long months of pre-launch discussion that went on behind closed doors, setting up a structure which was the very opposite of transparency, lacking wider involvement of trade unionists and those in the social movements who were always going to form the basis of a new left party.

That lack of engagement continued when the project was launched, leaving many puzzled that the new party didn’t even try to mobilise its hundreds of thousands of supporters for national Palestine demonstrations or to oppose Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march, the largest ever far-right protest in UK history.

Indeed, the nascent party apparatus, dominated by figures from Corbyn’s Leader of the Opposition (Loto) office staff, were busy looking in, not looking out. Trained in trade-union and Labour Party administration and office politics, and in the failed Corbyn support project, Momentum, they came up with an overly complex scheme that would have resulted in a launch conference in which most members would be excluded from meaningful discussion and critical resolution-based debate.

Instead of using the hundreds of thousands of pounds collected from new supporters to hold a mass conference to rival the 20,000 who attend Labour conference or the 13,000 that attended Farage’s Birmingham rally, the new party would have had a few thousand-strong conference chosen by lottery.

The four Palestine Independent MPs plus Corbyn and Sultana were meant to oversee the process. But Sultana was unhappy with this process and was further disconcerted that membership fees would go to those who wanted to marginalise or exclude her.

Sultana then launched a membership drive, with money going to the existing Your Party account controlled by her supporters. This was repudiated by Corbyn, who is now threatening legal action. Sultana defended herself … and here we are.

If there is any hope of rescuing the new party project, it now lies with a self-organising membership that can call a halt to the arguments over money and bureaucratic control at the top. There should be every attempt to heal the rift but not on the basis of backdoor deals or on legal resolution. If the factionalism and division continue, then the party will have failed to match the aspirations of its supporters and, more importantly, will have failed to meet the challenges of British politics, not least the need to provide an alternative to Starmer, and to Reform and Robinson. It is shocking that we are in this position.

In Wales, Your Party is led by former PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka and former Labour MP Beth Winter. They are calling for an end to the infighting, but also organising their own Welsh national meeting to get on with forming the new party. Similar moves are happening in Scotland, and Palestine Independent councillor Michael Lavalette is working on similar lines in Lancashire with his Preston Independents group. In other parts of the country, Your Party supporters are similarly minded.

The truth is that the grassroots of Your Party are more disciplined and, already, better organised than the leadership. If Your Party is to meet the needs of the hour, it is by these forces that the project can be rescued.