It is no secret that there were tensions between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Zarah bounced Corbyn into forming the Your Party when she resigned from the Labour Party. Corbyn did nothing to hide his dismay that she had had the gall to call for an end to his dithering and delay about whether or not to form a new party.
It is therefore doubly disturbing that Corbyn, along with the four Independent MPs – none of whom claims to be a socialist – launched an attack on Zarah for sending out details of a new membership portal for Your Party.
The threat to invoke legal action including a complaint to the Information Commissioner are disgraceful. Has Corbyn not had enough of State interference, such as the EHRC report on ‘anti-Semitism’, in the British political system? The dispute is a political not legal one.
The panicked reaction of the all-male Independent MPs
Instead of supporting his co-leader, Corbyn attacked Sultana. Zarah is totally correct in calling out this misogyny and terming it a ‘sexist boys club’. Corbyn should be ashamed of aligning with the group of male, Muslim MPs who were elected on opposition to the genocide in Gaza but who are not otherwise progressive or on the left.
Corbyn has aligned himself with sexists against a young, politically principled woman MP. Socialists should have no difficulty in deciding where their loyalties lie. Corbyn seems determined to repeat the mistakes which led to his defeat as Labour leader.
Corbyn really needs to get a grip and put the overwhelming desire of people to see an alternative to Starmer and Farage at the top of his priorities. Instead of excluding Zarah he must talk to her. The Independent MPs are welcome to join the party but they must not have special privileges.
Politically they are a mixed bunch. Adnan Hussein was elected in Blackburn with a communalist vote defeating Craig Murray. Shokat Adams opposes the idea of a left or socialist party because we might put off people on the right.
One year ago Jackie Walker, Chris Williamson, Asa Winstanley, Anne Mitchell and myself wrote a letter to Corbyn asking him to reassess the role that false accusations of anti-Semitism played in his downfall as Leader of the Labour Party and his reaction to them.
During Corbyn’s leadership hundreds of good socialists were expelled from the Labour Party for ‘anti-Semitism’, in reality criticising the State of Israel. This was at the behest of the genocide supporting Jewish Labour Movement who claimed that it was all about ‘anti-Semitism’ when anyone with a few brain cells could see that their sole concern was support of the apartheid state of genocide. Ctd....