In a dramatic turn for Britain’s newest left-wing political force, a public feud between Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn has erupted into open legal threats, accusations of sexism, and a scramble to reassure supporters about the safety of their donations. What began as an ambitious effort to launch an alternative to the Labour Party has, within months, descended into infighting that some insiders fear could threaten the very future of the fledgling movement.
Zarah Sultana, the 31-year-old Coventry South MP who left Labour in July 2025, announced late on Friday, September 19, that she had instructed specialist defamation lawyers. In a statement posted on social media, Sultana said, “These baseless attacks on my character are politically motivated and I intend to hold to account those responsible for making them.” She added, “Over the last 24 hours, a number of false and defamatory statements have been published about me concerning the launch of Your Party’s membership portal.”
The crisis exploded after Sultana launched a website—yourparty-membership.uk—inviting supporters to sign up for membership at £5 a month or £55 a year. Sultana, who claimed on social media that over 20,000 people had already joined, urged the public to back the new party financially and help build a movement “in line with the road map set out to members.”
But only hours after the membership drive began on Thursday, September 18, Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and Sultana’s co-founder of the party, sent an “urgent message” to supporters. In the statement, co-signed by four other independent MPs, Corbyn described Sultana’s email as “unauthorised” and warned people to cancel any direct debits they had set up. “Legal advice is being taken,” he added, according to multiple reports, including the BBC and The Guardian.
Corbyn’s intervention set off a wave of confusion and anger among supporters. Sultana immediately fired back, accusing Corbyn and his allies of freezing her out of party decisions and running what she described as a “sexist boys’ club.” She said she had been “sidelined” and “effectively frozen out” by Corbyn and fellow independent MPs Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohammed, and Shockat Adam. “Members would never accept [Karie Murphy] having sole financial control of their money,” Sultana said, referencing Corbyn’s former chief of staff, whose prominent role in the party’s financial structures has been a point of contention.
Corbyn allies dismissed Sultana’s accusation, with one telling The Guardian, “The sexism charge is identity politics nonsense.” Others pointed out that “many women” were involved in the party’s leadership. Yet the public nature of the dispute left supporters dismayed and exposed deep rifts in the party before it had even held its founding conference, scheduled for November 2025.
The party, currently operating under the campaign name “Your Party,” was launched in July 2025 as a left-wing alternative following Corbyn’s expulsion from Labour (although he was re-elected as an independent MP in 2024). Sultana’s abrupt resignation from Labour and subsequent partnership with Corbyn was, according to sources cited by The Guardian, not universally welcomed in Corbyn’s camp. Tensions had simmered over the summer, particularly after Sultana criticized Corbyn’s leadership decisions during his Labour tenure, including his acceptance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in 2018—a move she said represented “capitulation.”
As the row escalated, three senior party members—Jamie Driscoll, Beth Winter, and Andrew Feinstein—attempted to mediate between Sultana and Corbyn. In a joint statement, they said they were “exasperated” by the leadership fallout. “In blunt terms, we demanded a meeting to get it sorted. One side agreed, the other has not responded despite multiple attempts,” they wrote. The trio emphasized that all donations were safe, explaining that a company called MOU Operations Ltd, established in April 2025, served as the custodian of party funds. “All the donations encouraged by both Zarah and Jeremy, or anyone else, went into this bank account, with their approval,” they explained. “The recent email launching a membership system uses exactly the same payment system, and goes into the same bank account.”
They also promised that “people who want a refund will be eligible for one” and committed to sharing the refund mechanism with supporters. According to The Times, Driscoll, Winter, and Feinstein had tried for weeks to broker a peace, but divisions only deepened as the party’s November conference approached.
Sultana, for her part, insisted in her Friday statement that “at no point was members’ data misused or put at risk” and that “all funds received from members were ringfenced and protected in the appropriate manner.” The party confirmed it had referred the membership portal dispute to the UK’s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, in an effort to reassure members and the public about the integrity of its operations.
Meanwhile, Corbyn, speaking at the annual conference of his Peace and Justice Project, acknowledged the “quite difficult” process of founding the new party in recent days. He declined to comment directly on Sultana’s legal threat, but made clear he was “absolutely determined” that the new party would be officially launched later in 2025. Corbyn also spoke out in defense of Karie Murphy, saying, “I’ve known Karie Murphy for many, many years and I’m appalled when people attack an individual like her. She’d walk on burning coals for a cause that she believes in.”
The public spat has had immediate consequences for the party’s support base. According to The Guardian, nearly 1,400 people joined the Green Party in the 24 hours following the dispute, with some disillusioned supporters seeking an alternative. By September 20, 2025, a faction calling itself “Our Party” had gathered 4,000 signatures on an open letter urging the six MPs at the heart of the dispute to step aside in favor of an “independent handover team.” The letter warned, “It is clear there has been a breakdown of trust between leading figures, which risks the entire process disintegrating.”
As the dust settles, the fate of “Your Party” hangs in the balance. The party’s founding conference in November will be a critical test of whether it can overcome its early divisions and present a unified front to voters. For now, however, the movement’s promise of a fresh start for Britain’s left looks clouded by internal strife, legal threats, and a crisis of confidence among its own supporters—a stark reminder of just how hard it is to build something new in the fractious world of British politics.
