Corbyn and Sultana clash over new party membership

Ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana has accused Jeremy Corbyn of overseeing a “sexist boys’ club” locking women out of the founding of a new left-wing party the pair announced earlier this year.

Sultana said she had been sidelined by other members of the party’s working group, despite an agreement she and Corbyn would jointly authorise key steps.

Earlier on Thursday, Your Party supporters had received an email offering £55 memberships, which Corbyn later dismissed as “unauthorised”, saying he was seeking legal advice.

Your Party has referred the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Sultana said she had launched the membership website “in line with the road map” set out by party officials.

Before her statement, Sultana had been posting on social media throughout the morning encouraging people to sign up for the £55 full membership.

Sultana had claimed more than 20,000 people had signed up – meaning the new party could have raised more than £1m in a single morning.

In her statement she said: “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.”

Before Sultana’s comments, Corbyn put out a conflicting statement signed by Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam – members of the Independent Alliance of MPs who are founding the new party. Sultana’s name was conspicuously missing from the list.

The message to supporters on Thursday morning claimed an “unauthorised email” had been sent promoting a membership portal under a new domain name.

They urged backers to ignore the message and cancel any direct debits that may have been set up.

Sultana defended her decision to set up the membership portal, insisting it was “in line with the road map set out to members on Monday and is a safe, secure, legitimate portal for the party”.

She claimed she had set up the site to allow supporters to “continue to engage and organise”, and that membership funds were held by a company set up by the party to safeguard money until November’s founding conference.

Sultana also went on to raise concerns that long-time Corbyn ally Karie Murphy and her associates had been handed “sole financial control of members’ money and sole constitutional control over our conference”.

She called for Corbyn to publish all party structures, arguing only transparency would “restore hope for our members and ensure nothing like this can ever happen again”.

“This party is bigger than any one person,” she said, “and we owe it to the movement to uphold its democratic and socialist foundations.”

In a statement, Your Party denied Murphy had “access to or control of any funds”, calling her a “trusted and dedicated volunteer”.

Your Party group has sent the case to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the data protection law watchdog, over suspected misuse of supporters’ details.

The ICO can issue fines up to £17.5m or 4% of global turnover, or pass fraud and negligence cases to police.

On social media, some left-wingers raged that the party fragmenting so early into its formation had put them off joining.

Guardian journalist Owen Jones, who has championed the new party, warned that if the split drags on “people will switch off and just bet everything on the Greens”.

The row is the latest falling out at the top of the new group that has yet to be named or hold an annual conference.

In July, Sultana announced she was leaving Labour and starting a new party with Corbyn, a move that took the former Labour leader and others involved in the project by surprise.

The pair also disagreed over the name of the party. In July, Sultana insisted it would not be called Your Party – saying she instead favoured The Left Party – only for Corbyn to hint the name could stay. The final decision is to be put to a vote by supporters.

Despite the bumpy start, the party began to build momentum, signing up more than 750,000 supporters – under the placeholder name of Your Party.

Earlier this week, Your Party emailed supporters saying membership would open by the end of September and draft party rules and policy positions would soon be published.

This would be followed by national assemblies in October and an online vote on the new name for the party.

In November, the party’s founding conference will be held.