cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12190
The founding conference of Your Party was supposed to be the birth of the radical new left that we’ve all been screaming for for years. For months, this party has been billed as the movement that would tear up the old Labour rulebook, a new transformative force, member-led and ready to rip the heart out of the establishment and the elites.
Instead, those of us who travelled to Liverpool (under very short notice, may I add) witnessed an undignified and embarrassing pantomime that felt less like a conference and more like a nasty wake where all the family argues. You know the ones, where your old racist uncle tries to batter his more open-minded son whilst they lower the corpse into the ground. It was an appalling display of factionalism that will haunt Your Party forever.
The good news? The membership didn’t put up with the bullshit, and the grassroots of us fought back. They spat on the secretive plots of an unelected shadow, making decisions behind the scenes, and delivered a decisive verdict on the left in the UK. It is ours, not theirs.
The undemocratic stain that spoiled the vibe at Your Party’s conference
I need to be crystal clear about this sabotage that fucked the entire vibe of the Saturday of the conference: the expulsion of members, including those linked to the somewhat irritating Socialist Worker’s Party (SWP), took place the night before.
That was a ball-to-the-wall wild move to make. Why, when the membership had yet to vote on the motion of dual membership, were people being expelled? The vote was literally scheduled for the next fucking day. Why the hell would someone okay this entirely undemocratic move?
To us, on the outside looking in, this wasn’t enforcing a rule. It was setting a dangerous precedent. It was a message from a shadowy team behind the scenes that seemed to say: “Our unelected clique will decide who is allowed in, not you.”
Many people may welcome the ban on the SWP. Let’s face it, their style can be annoying, but denying members affiliated with them access to the conference before a democratic vote is entirely indefensible. It’s authoritarian as shit and pulled straight from the pages of the Labour right’s playbook. A book that Your Party has promised to tear up and throw away since it was first announced, so needless to say, the membership didn’t appreciate this dangerous precedent.
But whichever plank okayed the move only ensured that the first day was fucking chaos, consumed by anger and desperate calls from the floor for unity. It seemed clear: one side of the leadership chose purge over principle, and the members made their rage clear.
By Antifabot
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