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Week two, post the Your Party launch, and, oh boy, there’s a lot to tell!
The good news is that I’ve condensed hours of videos and 17 top news stories, spanning the 9th – 17th December, into a 17 minute read. Not bad going aye? So let’s dive right in, and watch out for some breaking news stories further down the page folks…
9th Dec 2025:
Following the Your Party founding conference, Counterfire hosts an online debate with leading figures on the left to discuss how we organise to fight for unity, democracy and an effective party. Speakers include Michael Lavalette, Zebunisa Rao, Salma Yaqoob and Tariq Ali. Lavalette kicks off and tells us that the party membership is growing and is now closer to 60,000. He believes it would have been higher if not for the factionalism. He believes that the reason why members voted for collective leadership is because they wanted to see an end to the factionalism but reminds us that both factions are however united on the vast majority of issues… “the vast majority of us… we are for Palestine, we are against imperialism and war, we are for an end to the cost of living crisis, we are for the renationalisation of the railways, of the waterways, of gas & electricity, we are for greater investment in welfare services and the National Health Service, we are for an end to student fees and for free education for all…” He encourages us to shift focus away from the small number of wedge issues that keep divided and turn our attention toward fighting for what unites us, i.e. all the things that Your Party actually stands for. With elections coming up next May, now is the time to put our energy into building branches, embedding ourselves in our local communities, in local socialist movements, in local trade union movements, and networking with other Your Party campaigners, and we need to get a move on with candidate selection and formulating a campaign strategy now. He suggest building a national campaign around 4-5 key issues and proposes a new pitch… “a new start for broken Britain.” He reminds us that the key issues that come up, again and again, in the opinion polls, are the cost of living crisis and inequality, because people are literally struggling to pay rent and put food on the table. Then there’s all the “hugely expensive” but “broken services” – rail, transport, waterways, gas, electric, etc – that somehow still seem to make an awful lot of money for their shareholders and should all be brought back into public ownership. Lavalette tells us, instead of paying shareholder dividends we should be using this money to improve these services, and we should also be talking about investing in our welfare services, such as “in education, in hospitals, in the NHS, in community health, in University student grants (rather than fees)… these are the things that absolutely are at the heart of broken Britain.. and they should be the first things that we are addressing.” We also need to address the argument, made by pro-austerity parties, that there’s no money for public services. This argument doesn’t hold water when you realise just how much they’re prepared to spend on warfare and munitions, and some MPs are now also making the case for conscription. We should be arguing “for welfare, not warfare, that we are against conscription, we’re against forever wars… we’re against the huge rearmament programs that are being driven through at the expense of ordinary people… and we need to stand up for the Palestinian people and for a just solution in the middle east.” Thirdly, we need to show a united front against the likes of Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage. We must stand up “against Islamophobia and the horrific levels of racism that we see in Britain today.” We’ve seen what happens in Reform run local councils. In Lancashire, Reform are the main political party with 53 councillors… “they are closing older people’s homes… they are undermining SEND services (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities services, for children and young people)” and in exchange we get flags on lamp posts and the national anthem sung at every council meeting. Fourthly, we should be standing up to an authoritarian government and saying NO “to ID cards, restrictions on our freedoms of speech, our freedom to march, our freedoms to mobilisation.” Finally, we should also demand “a world, free of discrimination and oppression” and say no to culture wars. Instead, let’s argue “for unity of black & white, of Muslim, Christian, Hindu and people of no faith… for the unity of men & women and it doesn’t matter if people are gay or straight” as we’re all in the same boat. Remember, while we’re at each other’s throats, they’re getting away with ripping us all off.
Zebunisa Rao, from the newly established ‘Your Party Muslim Network’, explains that the Muslim Network is against the two party system in the UK. The network is against austerity, inequality and divisive governance. We’ve endured corrupt unethical governments and just had to try to make the most of it… “The cost of living still is the price we have to pay to be alive” and “with the recent genocide of Gaza… we saw clearly what the major government’s of the world represent, and that is their own interests, alone,” but we’ve also witnessed how the humanity of ordinary people has “over ridden all of the differences of colour, background, history and demographics… It is out of this renewed shared sense of humanity that the dream of Your Party arose.” Rao remind us that despite everything the party has gone through, in the run up to conference, we still made history… “it was really hard for some people to imagine… that we could actually have a party that was designed by those at grassroots level, rather than a top down dictatorship, that it was too good to be true.” Now, the goal of the Your Party Muslim Network will work to build trust and encourage more political engagement from the Muslim community, something that hasn’t really happened before, as Muslims have felt politically homeless for a long time. The Muslim Network will hold public open days at local mosques and will work with the local clergy to build inter-faith bridges so that we can collectively respond to rising far right xenophobia and “the use of Christianity for a nationalistic anti-migrant agenda.” Most British Muslims supports socialist policies and principles and would like to see an end to the cost of living crisis. They want an improved education service, more social and developmental opportunities for families and children, the rebuilding of the NHS and public services as a priority and an anti-austerity and just economy. They also want environmental justice and an end to the dumping of sewage in rivers and polluting neighbourhoods. They want an end to poorly insulated homes and there’s also an interest in the 4 day work week, universal basic income for the working class, as well as support for proportional representation in elections and minimum voter turnout thresholds for democratic construction of policies.
Former leader of the Respect Party and former Labour candidate for West Midlands’s Mayor, Salma Yaqoob, tells us we now have at least 60,000 members who are all united behind the concept of an anti-austerity, pro-peace party. She’s also encouraged to see the Greens doing well, as… “it shows, again, that this need for an alternative is real. I think British politics will be stronger the more parties we have which advocate for the working class, which advocate for the environment, which advocate for peace… I see it as complimentary and as a reaffirmation of what we need to do… for me, no matter what happens, we should go forward together in a spirit of collaboration… I believe, because of the campaigning we’ve already done, around the 2 child benefit cap… calling out the scandal of the winter fuel payment, we’ve seen the shift in the Labour party, and the Green Party also advocating for that.” We’re also anti-war and united against Israel’s genocide and fighting for a genuine ceasefire. Yaqoob reminds us how “the wars abroad have had a very material impact on our country as well.. we’ve seen now the pulling back on Jury trials, we’ve seen increased surveillance, we’ve seen people being criminalised purely for saying we don’t want a genocide.” She recalls how, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people were predicting then that there would be an impact on our civil liberties in the UK… “we predicted the racist back lash and how Muslims in this country would be demonised, and that has happened.” Yaqoob tells us that she now worries every time her boys walk outside, carrying a back pack, thinking that they could be targeted. So now, its vital that we come together and focus on the key issues that matter most to the vast majority of people, like the cost of living, even if it means compromising on other issues that perhaps don’t capture people’s attention as much. Fighting the establishment, is easier if you focus on issues that most voters can unite behind, and we must not allow the establishment to divide us, as they’ve done many times before… “our solidarity, is what they fear.” She then turns her attention to the opposition parties… “our real enemy is this Labour government, which has been more authoritarian than even the last Tory government, which has pushed on with the austerity agenda and has overseen genocide in Palestine… our real enemy is Farage and the Reform Party, which has a set of views we cannot ignore.” Successive polls have shown that this is is what we’re up against… “and if that hasn’t thrown cold water on all the people who think that it’s really important to fight on what the differences are between us then I really don’t know what will” Yaqoob endorses Michael Lavalette’s proposal of 5 policies that the party can unite around. She’s also for welcoming people across the political spectrum into the fold, as she believes this is the best way to engage with them and that it is vital that we do engage with them… “Farage is winning because he has identified material issues but then scapegoated Muslims, asylum seekers and migrants. His audience is actually our audience, but we cannot fall into that same divide of us and them, and it takes real effort, it takes emotional maturity, it takes political will, it takes determination and it takes swallowing some difficult stuff to do this in reality… weaning people away from mainstream parties is not an easy endeavour” Yaqoob believes it’s possible to grab their attention by focusing on key policies, like the wealth tax, and an end to NHS privatisation. Yaqoob, an NHS psychotherapist, explains how underfunding and privatisation has literally reduced the life expectancy of the poor and disabled by as much as 10yrs, and if you’re LGBTQ, you’re twice as likely to have mental health issues… “because we live in a very divisive society which, under this particular economic system, emphasises competition and punching down.” We should be angry, she tells us, but we should also be the people who can “embody those values of hope, inclusivity and compassion… our country is relying on us, and I say, as a visible Muslim, you know we cannot have our Muslim brothers and sisters feel that this party is not a place for them.” To be successful electorally, we’re going to need a coalition, and that will include Muslims and young people, as well as the red wall working class.
Veteran political activist, writer, journalist and historian, Tariq Ali, starts by describing the founding of the Labour Party in 1893. The Independent Labour Party was established because workers felt they needed their own party to represent them but it wasn’t a smooth process then either. Frederick Engles, who Ali describes as ‘a great socialist, theoretician and a comrade of Marx, wrote at the time “of course there will be stupidities enough and cliques of every kind too, but so long as it is possible to keep them within decent limits, we should be ok.” The trouble is, Ali explains, we step outside of the realm of decent limits when people start to threaten each other with legal action or start accusing each other of trying to take funds. This looks more like a sign of desperation and the consequence of this is a drop in the polls, which is exactly what happened. We can remedy this but its now up to us “to show what you’re made of… you have to be part of campaigning, you’ve got to stop these battles, which are not within decent limits, and you have to understand that we’re in a very different period from 1893.” Ali explains that we have a much steeper hill to climb today, in a post Thatcherite era, after workers have been battered with wave after wave of defeats, such as the miner’s strike, which basically emasculated the trade unions. Thankfully, some of the smaller unions have started to become more active, which is a good sign. Also, Labour was set up as a socialist party, whereas as Your Party is really a ‘left social democratic’ party. What’s required is about 10 policy points that we can all rally around, under the banner of ‘left social democracy,’ and an end to “crazy battles about whether we nationalise everything, or whether ‘x’ is a revisionist for not agreeing with that.. these are foolish.” He reminds us… “we are in a period of defeat… everywhere in Europe, far right parties are gathering speed – Le Pen in France, the German right wing party [Alternative for Germany] is going forward very quickly, in Italy [Giorgia Meloni, head of the Brothers of Italy Party] they’re already in power.” Ali explains that this is happening because Social democracy, socialist parties and the communist parties have all been pretty much wiped out and the centrists have lost support. The UK Labour party thinks they can tinker around the edges and win back support, which is why they’ve dug up the old story about Farage being a racist thug when he was at school, which has done nothing to turn their fortunes. Ali points out that at least Farage is consistent, unlike Labour. It should be clear to everyone that Labour haven’t got what it takes to take on Reform, so it’s vitally important that Your Party steps up to the plate now. Ali explains that we must first drop the factionalism and point scoring nonsense and unite in a common cause, and then we must unite with other left wing parties “large or small” when the time is right – forming alliances for local and national elections. Ali calls on the Your Party leadership to ponder on the mistakes they have made and what that has cost the party, and to now ensure that the elected CEC should represent everyone “including the rank and file.” He also explains that, while it’s possible to have online communication with the membership, online engagement is poor and there’s no substitute for strong local and regional conferences or strong local branches, where politics is discussed amongst the members, and there should be no issues that people are too afraid to discuss or debate. He tells us that we should also welcome people who don’t consider themselves socialists, pointing out that people who support the ‘Stop the War’ campaign and ‘Palestine Action’ are not all socialists and Your Party should speak up on these things and extend their support to the hunger strikers, in the same way we supported the Irish hunger strikes in the past. Speaking out on important issues is vital if we want to build the party, and failing to do this will cost us any advances we have made. Ali tells us that the Labour Party has lost the trust and confidence of supporters and voters and is collapsing right now and they don’t have too many options ahead either, even with a change of leadership, so now is a prime opportunity for Your Party to step in and win people to their side. Your Party can do this very easily by openly “defending the health service, defending the utilities, renationalising the railways… democratising Britain – having local govts that are democratic and with power to take action locally, as they used to… getting rid of the monarchy and the House of Lords.” Ali also wants Your Party to tackle the scourge of Islamophobia that has exploded in the UK and all over the world. He tells us that much of the discourse around Islam for some time has been about the religious text and Muslim scholars have essentially focused all their efforts on defending that. There’s absolutely no discourse, knowledge of, or appreciate for the centuries of advances and contributions that Islam has given to the world. We don’t talk about, for example “the Islamic civilisation that functioned from the 7th Century to at least the 12th Century, where enormous advances were made, by Muslims scientists, in medicine, in astronomy in mathematics… Algebra is an Arabic word.” Ali would like to see schools educating pupils about the contributions made by the Islamic world, as well as raising awareness within Muslim groups. He believes that we can’t take on the Islamophobes, including those ignorant MPs in government today, if we’re not better informed ourselves. People don’t realise that “Islam was a central part of European culture for several hundred years, until it was driven out by force… everyone should be taught this” Ali believes that Your Party is too important to fail so we should all end the ridiculous factionalism, now, before we start losing important people. Ali asks, what would be our prospects, for example, if Jeremy or Zarah got fed up of it all and just decide to leave the party?… “we need them both, and we need other’s like them to build a unified party.” He similarly would like to see some genuine respect and comradeship between Zarah & Jeremy, a united front, instead of “grim faces on platforms or fake smiles… I’m fed up of all of that, and so are many many people who are members of Your Party.” Ali explains, another strong selling point could be our position on foreign wars. We should have a clear position that there will be no support for NATO, no support for the massive scale of war mongering that is going on at the moment and no support for conscription – all unpopular policies with the vast majority of ordinary people in Europe (and across the world), but which seem to be so popular with European governments… “it’s not that there isn’t support for peace, there is, it’s the elites that represent big money and capital in the arms industry, who let it proceed forward.” Ali concludes that, despite all the problems we’ve had launching Your Party, it still has a chance to break through, providing we can all show a united front, but it’s also important to allow space for members to be able to freely debate and argue their points as well. If we fail to do that then the party will die, just as the Labour Party is dying now because they couldn’t tolerate differences of opinion.
10th Dec 2025:
The Arise political party, endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn MP (founded in August) and led by former councillor and 2024 Independent parliamentary candidate and director of the Peace and Justice Project, Pamela Fitzpatrick, held its first canvassing session in the Marlborough ward, Harrow.
https://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/25686721.jeremy-corbyn-endorsed-party-launches-campaign-harrow/
9th Dec 2025:
13 Labour MPs back a Liberal Democrat bill calling on the government to begin negotiations on joining a bespoke customs union with the EU, helping it to go through to the second reading, as other’s warned that this would be “complete fuel for Reform.” Presumably in an attempt to cool nerves, Harriet Harmen told Sky’s Beth Rigby that the government may not rejoin the current customs union, but will be part of elements of it. Only trouble is, Starmer spent a great deal of his time trashing Brexit during his speech at the Lady Mayor’s Banquet 2 weeks ago.
https://news.sky.com/story/attempting-to-rejoin-eu-customs-union-complete-fuel-for-reform-starmer-warned-13482172
11th Dec 2025:
Ambitious Wes Streeting takes another pot shot at Starmer. Apparently, he’s “frustrated” with the “technocratic approach” of the UK Government. He acknowledges that Labour are tanking in the polls. According to Streeting, Labour are just not communicating their values effectively and shouldn’t be trying to out-Reform Reform… “We can take them on and beat them with values-driven Labour arguments. We can reunite the centre and the left, and I think that is the historic responsibility that we have.” Sounds like the penny’s finally dropped and they’re all panicking like the house is on fire.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25689581.wes-streeting-launches-thinly-veiled-attack-keir-starmer/
12th Dec 2025:
FT reports Labour membership has dropped to 250,000, after losing 100,000 members since the election, making Reform, with 268,631 members, the largest political party in the UK by default. The Greens currently have about 180,000, the Tories have about 120,000 and the Liberal Democrats have about 83,000.
https://www.ft.com/content/138527be-266a-40a2-b8f5-6d0eae7072a6
12th Dec 2025:
Desperate Starmer hires agency to build him a TikTok army. The firm have been tasked with finding and training a network of political influencers (where have we seen that tactic before?). Apparently, Nigel Farage has 1.4million followers on TikTok, so they’ve got some catching up to do.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/12/reelpolitik-inside-labours-influencer-agency
12th Dec 2025:
IPSOS shows Andy Burnham beating Starmer by 13 points in the popularity polls. He’s also the only person that’s more popular than Nigel Farage at the moment (ahead by 4 points). Kemi Badenoch is also 1 point ahead of Starmer and Farage & Starmer are neck and neck. Starmer does currently have a 6 point lead on Zack Polanski and he’s still more popular than Wes Streeting (6 point lead) and Ed Miliband (8 point lead). The poll also shows that 71% of the population thinks that Great Britain is heading in the wrong direction and while 48% believe this is the fault of successive governments, there’s also 32% who blame it on the current government, while only 14% blame it on previous Tory governments.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/andy-burnham-preferred-keir-starmer-pm-narrowly-leads-nigel-farage
14th Dec 2025:
Any Burnham is looking to return as a sitting MP. He’s currently searching for a safe Labour seat so that he can get his foot in the door. If he gets his way, he’ll then be in a position to challenge Starmer for the top job.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/12/14/burnham-lining-up-return-as-mp-challenge-starmer/
15th Dec 2025:
Following rumours that Reform could form an electoral pact with the Tories, the Greens suggest that they would open to an electoral pact with Labour to keep Farage out, providing Starmer steps down. Politico reports that Polanski has been talking up Andy Burnham as a prospective replacement for Starmer.
https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-greens-labour-nigel-farage-zack-polanski-pact-politics/
15th Dec 2025:
Tommy Robinson threatens Farage with legal action for saying he’s violent against women. Robinson was convicted of assaulting an off-duty police officer in 2005 after he intervened to protect Robinson’s girlfriend, while he was arguing with her in the street.
https://leftfootforward.org/2025/12/tommy-robinson-threatens-to-sue-nigel-farage-over-libellous-claims/
15th Dec 2025:
Your Party announces plans to hold its first Scottish conference in Dundee on 7 and 8 February 2026.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25698807.party-meet-dundee-amidst-indy-position-debate/
16th Dec 2025:
Reform-run Worcestershire County Council considering increasing council tax by 10% (above the 5% maximum limit), despite previously pledging to cut taxes.
https://leftfootforward.org/2025/12/reform-council-considers-potential-10-council-tax-rise/
16th Dec 2025:
5 Labour Brent Cllrs defect to the Green Party.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-defections-greens-london-starmer-polanski-b2884855.html
16th Dec 2025:
Interesting review of Your Party in The London Economic, suggesting what some, especially those in the media classes, perceive as weaknesses could be the party’s greatest strengths. The idea that the prelude and launch of the party was a car crash because it was rife with indecision and perceived cowardice… “noisy, confusing and at times painfully public” and then resulted in the absence of a single leader is “Westminster logic”, who see chaos as failure, and that’s all fair and well “if the aim was to launch another personality-driven vehicle, sleek enough for the morning shows and brittle enough to crack the first time its leader sneezes.” But, when you consider that the party’s stated purpose was to demonstrate that politics is bigger than people then “refusing to crown a leader” was going to be an “uncomfortable consequence” and “early squabbles, far from disproving this model, actually confirm it. When power is genuinely shared, disagreements don’t get buried in a leader’s office or laundered through anonymous aides. They surface. They’re argued over. They look ugly to a political culture trained to prefer stage-managed unity over real democracy.” Your Party “is explicitly trying to reject, rules that concentrate authority, flatten internal debate and turn politics into a spectator sport” and there’s something “refreshingly honest” about that, and “if democratic politics is to mean anything more than swapping one leader for another, it has to start somewhere.”
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/your-partys-awkward-beginnings-could-be-its-greatest-strength-401502/
17th Dec 2025:
Jamie Driscoll joined the Green Party today.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrnm56xdr5o
17th Dec 2025:
More bad news for Starmer. Left-wing candidate Andrea Egan, expelled from the Labour Party three years ago, has been elected as the new leader of Unison, the UK’s biggest trade union.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3wdv7rg67o
17th Dec 2025:
Another Brexit reversal… “UK to rejoin Erasmus student exchange programme in post-Brexit reset” France 24 further reports.. “The two sides have also agreed to start negotiations on electricity market integration, and have set a deadline to finalise a food and drink trade deal and carbon markets linkage next year”.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251217-uk-to-rejoin-erasmus-student-exchange-programme-in-post-brexit-reset
