Your Party urged to investigate conference rule-breaking

The Social Justice Party (SJP) has been supportive of Your Party (YP). But it has also raised some concerns about accountability for rule-breaking, telling the Canary it wants YP to:

urgently conduct an internal investigation into a serious allegation that a Your Party conference organiser abused their authority and deliberately broke the sortition rules.

The SJP clarified that its own elected representatives have:

been involved in discussions with like minded groups, such as The Collective, about building a new party of the left since 2024.

And it added that:

SJP members want Your Party to flourish and in order to do that it must operate in a manner that is fair, democratic and transparent.

The allegation of rule-breaking comes amid Your Party’s elections for its first Central Executive Committee (CEC). There have also been concerns about transparency and accountability during this process.

Alleged rule-breaking at Your Party’s founding conference

Members wanting to attend November’s founding conference in Liverpool had to go through a sortition process, with YP’s website saying this sought to:

assemble a representative group of people by effectively drawing lots, giving everyone an equal chance of being chosen

The SJP, however, discovered that one of its former members had:

received a personal invite from a conference organiser to attend Your Party’s Founding Conference.

This was despite the sortition process not choosing this member.

The SJP undertook an internal investigation, which:

concluded that it was beyond reasonable doubt that a Your Party conference organiser had broken the sortition rules

SJP chair Eric Barnes told us that, when the member arrived at the conference, they were allegedly:

issued with a pre-written speech and advised where to sit in the conference hall – in the same section as sortitioned participants – in order to maximise their chances of being selected to speak during a conference debate

A conference organiser, meanwhile, had also:

arranged for them to stay in a hotel and offered to pay for their accommodation and travel expenses. Although the SJP member did not actually speak during a conference debate they said that they were aware of another non-sortitioned person, who also gained access to the conference floor via a personal invite, who did speak

SJP will officially complain after CEC election

The SJP told us that it doesn’t currently “have confidence” that an official complaint to Your Party would receive fair and impartial attention, because:

At present Your Party is controlled by a small group of unelected people overseeing processes that as yet have not been formally agreed.

The party believed it was in YP members’ interests to comment now because:

Your Party is intending to use sortition as a mechanism for future member voting purposes, therefore Your Party members need to be aware of potential interference.

And it confirmed it:

will be submitting a formal complaint to Your Party once the new CEC leadership team has been elected enabling them to carry out their own investigation.

It explained why, saying:

Rule 7.1 of Your Party’s interim membership rules states ‘Members must not act in any way that brings the Party into disrepute’.

The SJP are concerned that a Your Party conference organiser broke the sortition rule, which is clearly an act that would bring the party into disrepute, and will be pursuing this complaint until it is satisfactorily resolved.

Barnes also expressed concern that these rule breaches may not have been the only ones. And he insisted:

It is even more galling that properly sortitioned delegates were barred from conference because they were deemed to be members of another political party. We trust that the new CEC will bring an end to these backroom manoeuvres and set Your Party on a path of genuine democracy.

The Canary approached Your Party for comment on these allegations, but received no response by the time of publication.

Featured image via the Canary