“I wanna put my trust in you/But you can understand why if I’ve got trust issues,” rapped Dave to MP Jeremy Corbyn in his 2017 song Question Time.
Eight years later, these lines almost sting.
When MP Zarah Sultana announced in July that she was quitting Labour and would, alongside Corbyn, be launching a new party, I felt that reform, with a lowercase r, not an uppercase one, was a tangible prospect. But the chaotic antics of Your Party in the last couple weeks have been bewildering and simply disappointing.
On the morning of 18 September 2025, subscribers to the party’s updates received an email trumpeting: “Today is the day. Our membership portal is now open.” But less than four hours later, another message pinged through, informing that the previous one had been “unauthorised” and “should be ignored.”
“Legal advice” was being sought, it read. I thought initially it had been a hack, but then I read the signatories. Sultana’s absence made clear this implosion had come from within.
It didn’t take long for Sultana to take to social media. She likened the politicians she had been working with to “a sexist boys’ club”, claiming she had been “treated appallingly and excluded completely.” Sultana’s retaliation included “specialist defamation lawyers.”
Where we’d been promised social justice, we were now being presented a big law case between co-founders.
It felt like a throwback to Dominic Cumming’s and Boris Johnson’s stunts. But their political vandalism had taken place behind a smokescreen. Your Party’s commitment to openness and transparency had turned into sparring through Instagram posts and publicising party disfunction.
Following Sultana’s initial announcement back in July, news had spawned in that Corbyn “appeared to have been blindsided” by Sultana’s announcement. Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor at The Sunday Times, went as far as saying that Corbyn was “furious and bewildered at the way it has been launched without consultation.”
I had refuted these claims as smear, another co-ordinated assassination of the left by the media. But frustratingly, the “commotion” of these recent “fraught days,” as Corbyn described himself, has fed straight into this image of a chaotic party with incoherent aims and agendas.
Sultana and Corbyn have now assured supporters that they have reconciled and continue building Your Party together. The “official” membership portal has now been released, but rather than a joint statement, the launch video features only one voice, Corbyn’s.
Aside from the dismal optics now tarnishing the party, it has also let its supporters down. It promised hope, only to bring despair through further political shambles. This is a time when unity and organisation is crucial for the left – Your Party thus far has delivered neither.
I’m left sceptical. And in part, I’m also hesitant of Corbyn as the spearhead.
Having grown up in his constituency, I have vast respect for his commitment to his politics and our local community. Emailing him about the issues that I care about is often pointless – he’s already taking action, whether that be in parliament or on the streets.
But it isn’t his principles that I doubt. The fact remains that by the time of the next election, Corbyn will be 80 (though admittedly he is more cogent than Biden was at his age, and saner than Trump at any age).
Zack Polanski, leader of the Greens since September, is shifting the image of the Greens as a “one-issue” party, offering a solid vision of social change and justice. Echoing the style of NYC’s Zohran Mamdani, his campaigns are engaging and direct. “Why is everything so s***?”, asks Polanski at the beginning of a video campaign. Another reason to add to his list is because we’re lacking fresh, confident momentum. The left must be stronger.
Perhaps it’s Polanski who will heal our “trust issues” with politicians – after all, he makes clear: “I’m not here to make friends with the people wrecking this country. I’m here to take them on.”
“Jeremy Corbyn” by garryknight is licensed under CC BY 2.0.