Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana are preparing a fresh attempt to launch memberships for their new party this week but without a joint public statement or a unified line, the Guardian understands.
The pair have spoken since Sultana called off legal action on Sunday night in a dramatic climbdown as she acknowledged people had been left feeling “demoralised” by the group’s public spats.
While their relations are said to remain cordial, Corbyn is understood to feel a “complete lack of trust” towards her, the Guardian has been told, noting it marked the second time she had made a unilateral move. It comes after tensions were laid bare last week when Sultana launched a membership portal without the party’s authorisation.
Insiders said the pair had always got along and they managed to have a meeting in the corridors of parliament last week before the row. They said Corbyn would be able to move past it eventually but highlighted how damaging the public arguments were to internal relations, having left some incredibly distressed.
Others closer to Sultana are believed to remain optimistic at the chance of a complete de-escalation over time.
At least 20,000 supporters paid £55 for a full membership via the portal Sultana launched, which Corbyn and all of the other Independent Alliance MPs – Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed – condemned as a “false membership system”, warning their supporters to ignore the email and cancel any payments they had made.
Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, defended her actions, hitting out with claims that she had been frozen out by a “sexist boys’ club” inside the party. Her allies said a “paranoid anti-democratic faction” inside the project had worked to exclude her from decision-making and was developing a rival membership system that would divert money to its own company giving it “complete control”, in an extraordinary attack on Corbyn’s longtime ally Karie Murphy’s involvement in the process.
Corbyn rejected her accusations, saying Sultana had not been excluded from any discussions and remained part of a process “rooted in inclusivity and mutual respect”, in a joint statement co-signed by all of the Independent Alliance.
While tensions undoubtedly remain about the process of establishing democratic principles surrounding Your Party itself and its founding conference, there is a clear desire from all sides to try to progress the process of launching the political entity.
Sultana’s allies insist she is doing everything she can to build bridges with Corbyn and is clear that the founding conference must go ahead on the planned timeline.
After she called off her plans to instruct “specialist defamation lawyers” to investigate a “number of false and defamatory statements” made about her concerning the launch of the initial portal, her allies had hoped there would be a possibility of showing a united front despite the low probability.
The row has inevitably widened tensions among all MPs involved, with the four Independent Alliance MPs understood to be incredibly upset about Sultana’s string of posts.
Sources close to them have said the characterisation of the environment being a “sexist boys club” had led to a spike in racist and Islamophobic abuse directed at them online, with one MP noting his daughter had been targeted too.
All involved insist the conference will determine the party’s constitution, leadership and policy by one-member-one-vote, with MPs overseeing the transition rather than dictating outcomes.
They believe this second more low-profile, low-stakes membership launch will help the movement move on from the party’s chaotic start.
