Big numbers, and some big figures from Croydon politics, are expected at Ruskin House next Tuesday, reports Political Editor WALTER CRONXITE
Anyone wanting to get themselves a seat had better turn up early at Ruskin House next Tuesday, when the tentatively named Your Party will have its first formal, open meeting in Croydon.
The new party formed by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, another MP frozen out of the Morgan McSweeney-dominated Labour party, has already attracted more than 650,000 expressions of support in the three weeks since they launched their website.
If even half that number sign up as members, it will comfortably become Britain’s largest political party.
So Cedar Hall is likely to be packed to the rafters for the meeting organised by the Croydon Assembly under the sub-heading: “The fight-back starts here!”
What form any such “fight-back” might take, like the party’s as yet undetermined name, is yet to be agreed, as Corbyn, Sultana and the Independent Alliance parliamentary group that includes four other MPs prepare for a first national conference “in autumn 2025”. Local elections across England, including Croydon and other London boroughs, are of course just nine months away.
In their joint announcement of the party, Corbyn and Sultana said: “The system is rigged when 4.5million children live in poverty in the sixth-richest country in the world.”
The party says that it wants to develop member-driven policies, having outlined “a fairly skeletal political vision”, based on principles of equality and peace. “We included public ownership, wealth taxes, investment in council housing, and support for Palestine,” Corbyn said this week.
The core idea is to involve constituents closely in local political directions and candidate selections.
Half-a-million supporters: Jeremy Corbyn is mobilising the masses
Such engagement, the party believes, will lead to the emergence of a new generation of “young, passionate, and ethically robust” people. Sultana and Corbyn described their aspiration as for “a new kind of political party, one that belongs to you”.
In an interview published yesterday by Tribune, Corbyn said: “650,000 people don’t sign up to a new project for no reason.
“They sign up because they have had enough. They’ve had enough of being made poorer while the rich get richer. They’ve had enough of rising water bills in return for burst pipes and sewage in our seas.
“They’ve had enough of making basic demands — like ensuring disabled people have enough support to live in dignity — and being ignored. They’ve had enough of being shut out of the decisions that affect their daily lives.
“You look at the problems facing society today: food banks are a major feature of life for thousands of people. Tenants in private sector flats are spending well over half their take-home pay. There’s massive levels of stress for people of all ages.
“When a government comes into office promising things will change, and then nothing does, something has to give. This energy has been pent up for a while, given that none of these issues are new.
‘Like watching a dam break’: the joint statement which has seen the project attract an outpouring of support
“Successive governments have refused to do anything about them.
“That is going to have a consequence — they are reaping what they have sowed.”
Corbyn described the launch of the party’s website as “like watching a dam break”, with people signing up for “a direction of travel they’ve been denied for so long: one that seeks to redistribute wealth and power”.
Polling has suggested that the new party could gain about 10% of the vote, damaging the electoral prospects of Labour and the Greens.
Hoped-for guest speakers for the event, due to start at 7.30pm on Tuesday, August 19, have not materialised (it is August, after all…), but those listed include representatives from trades unions, Disabled People Against Cuts, Black Lives Matter and Crystal Palace Friends of Palestine.
Top of the bill is Croydon Assembly’s David White, once an elected member of the GLC and hugely respected former veteran Labour Party official.
What might prove just as fascinating as anything any of the speakers might have to say is a spot of people watching, for past and present figures in Croydon’s Labour and Green parties particularly.
Perhaps, with an eye on those local elections next May, after Starmer’s Labour culled six sitting councillors, including four black women, the question raised will be whether they are attending just out of curiosity or with more serious intent.
Read more: Croydon Labour meeting bans the use of the word ‘Blairite’
Read more: Four black women among six councillors rejected by Labour
Read more: Mounting complaints of suspected fraud in Labour’s selections
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It does look like democratic socialism which is good. But I recoil from the language that looks divisive – ‘we’ and ‘they’.
I’m sorry I’ve upset you but I believe very strongly in inclusivity and, yes, language is crucial in this. I don’t read problematic media as you suggest – I am a loyal, avid and long time Inside Croydon
Still failing to post your reply properly Chris
Ffs have I replied to myself!!??
On this occasion you got it right. Well done
There are no ‘delete’ or ‘edit` buttons in Inside Croydon for those who meek mushtakes!
We are the many, they are the few, pretty straightforward really. If you don’t understand the divisions between the rich who fix the system in their favour and the poor who pay for everything through taxation and don’t get what they pay for, then you don’t understand the message and purpose of striving for real change. Or are you just a troll trying to get the most comment reactions on this site? Maybe you should get a real job. This movement has never just been about Britain, its worldwide. Look at Obama, Sanders, the four Congresswomen known as The Squad, they are the resistance against what has now become a daily litany of destruction of constitutional standards and that kind of rot has fine tendrils that grow and spread to every democracy worldwide. The rise of the far right and the manipulated media gradually changing public opinion towards the poorest in society over the past two decades, the refugees and the disabled who are demonised and the lies about our incomes, the handouts we supposedly get while we are struggling to eat enough AND pay our bills, especially in winter, then another £2-3bn is casually slashed from the welfare budget despite a cacophony of warnings from experts, economists, the NHS and even despite intervention from the United Nations. They wrote to Starmer before the Universal Credit bill went through. Christopher you should definitely come to the meeting and especially listen to Paula Peters, from Disabled People Against Cuts (dpac.uk.net) because if you don’t understand the divisions and the scope and length and breadth of the changes that are needed, then you’re kind of part of the problem through complacency, and off the cuff comments like yours are rude and hurtful to those who are really struggling, fighting a system rigged against them, for generations.
Will certainly be interesting to read the Allotment Party’s manifesto.