The new leftwing party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be called Your Party after a vote by members, but its weekend conference in Liverpool laid bare bitter divisions within the organisation.
Just over 37% of members voted for the name Your Party, provisionally adopted when it was launched earlier this year, to become permanent. The other options on the shortlist were Popular Alliance (25.23%), For The Many (23.52%) and Our Party (14.19%).
Members meeting in Liverpool and those online narrowly voted by 51.6% to 48.4% for the party to be steered by a new member-led executive, with a number of public-facing roles. Corbyn, who had preferred a sole leader model, warned it was 'hard for the public to grasp things' when a group of people ran the party.
Sultana reignited tensions on Sunday with a blistering attack on those 'at the top' of the party after boycotting the conference's first day in protest at the expulsion of several members belonging to the Socialist Workers party. She expressed contrition for her part in what she described as 'hiccups' around the formation of the party, but said the party had to 'confront' the expulsions, bans and censorship on the conference floor, calling them 'undemocratic'.
Members also voted to allow dual membership of other political groups by 69.2% to 30.8%, a significant result given the in-fighting over expulsions of members linked to other leftwing parties. Sultana reiterated her calls for Your Party to be an anti-Zionist party, saying 'we must sever all ties with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel'.
Before the conference closed with members singing Bella ciao, Corbyn made an appeal for unity, saying he understood 'all the frustrations' surrounding the party's establishment. The members' endorsement of a collective leadership model staves off a potentially explosive head-to-head contest between Corbyn and Sultana, but the party's executive will conduct a review into different options, leaving the possibility of a more traditional leadership structure in two years' time.
