Day two updates

Day two updates

Your Party is the name of Your Party
4:33pm

  • Pity in my view - confusing name

  • Good news that the constitution and political statement have been ratified so we are not in limbo going forward.

  • Live updates will end now!

[Andrew Hedges - DemBloc chair]

Voting has closed on ratification, voting has opened on today’s motions
4:04pm

Our recommendations:

Standing orders:

  • Amendment 1: Vote for a delegate conference OPTION A

  • Amendment 2: Voting at conference - empower conference delegates. Select OPTION A.

  • Amendment 3: Who submits motions to conference? Select branches. Select OPTION A

  • Amendment 4: Term limits - select OPTION B

  • Amendment 5: Policy development by branches - select OPTION A

Year one organisational strategy:

  • Amendment 1: Endorse independent socialist candidates - OPTION A

  • Amendment 2: Strategic seat selection in May 2026 - OPTION B

  • Amendment 3: Workers’ Movement Commission - ACCEPT

Should local party officers be subject to right to recall
3:50pm

  • This is a no brainer - yes, recall is possible

  • Second speaker misunderstands what an all members meeting is - a procedural term rather than a literal one which means every member is invited to a meeting, not to a meeting where all members are present.

  • Third speaker defends Luke, our co-founder, from having the mic cut on him.

Vote to support recall.

Policy development debate
3:40pm

  • This whole debate, we expect, will be dull and not particularly significant. Branches should be empowered to discuss policy, rather than individuals who can just keep writing policy into an online void. Seems like pretty much a re-run, of the conference motion debate. They definitely could have been rolled into one debate - but that wouldn’t kill time, would it?

  • First speaker tells us that branches should be empowered and only by empowering them can we make sure that we build party power.

  • Second speaker gets told to speak to the motion when she takes a few seconds to say she is unhappy with people being told they can’t speak on transphobia.

Term limits debate
3:27pm

Various speakers use claims of inclusion to argue both for and against term limits.

Can we call a motion of no confidence in the chair? NO
3:30pm

We went to the standing orders committee to ask how a motion of no confidence in the chair could be possible. In the last debate, there was a heavily biased intervention from the chair. We were told there is no mechanism for this. We were told all the standing order committee is empowered to do is note down our feedback.

That’s not democracy…

Who should submit motions to conference?
3:13pm

  • Luke speaks, a co-founder of The Democratic Bloc, saying “there has been an online submission portal with 600+ motions yet yesterday we only had 1 motion” The chair cuts the mic even though Luke is speaking on the issue. The chair tries to silence him but the floor chant “let him speak”. Luke calls for a workers’ wage to be heard.

  • The chair exploits her position to attack Luke’s speech.

  • The chair tells conference floor that she is not scared of us.

  • Second speaker opposes branches sending motions but stands with us on the workers’ wage.

  • The third speaker condemns the silencing of the workers’ wage.

  • Anna Rothery, ex-Liverpool Mayor, is speaking against branches sending motions to conference. Rothery does not acknowledge that she is defending a system that has already been used for an anti-democratic stitch up.

The online motion portal has already been used to shut down members’ voices. Compositing would be chaos without branch delegates leading the process.

Who should vote at conference?
3pm

  • First speaker says that it was only the branches can deliver radical politics. Building from below is more important than a national voting structure.

  • Second speaker is supporting online voting for conference votes to increase accessibility. The speaker wrongly claims that conferences are always exclusionary on a financial basis - this isn’t the case when branches pay expenses for delegates.

  • Third speaker is supposed to speak to option A, but is actually speaking for option B.

  • The chair calls another speaker for option B. So we have had three speakers for B, one for A.

  • Chair asks if anyone else wants another speaker on option A, confusion ensues. No extra speaker is called.

Our position is that democratic deliberation works best when people are in the hall, listening to debates. Online voting encourages people just voting, not engaging in the discussions.

Conference attendee selection: by branch elections or by branch elections with sortition
Roadmap amendment 1
2:45pm

  • The chair says that if members do not speak to the motion they will be cut off.

  • First speaker, from Counterfire, “sortition is a lottery bingo where people who have done nothing to build our party” rather we should trust the membership.

  • Second speaker, Just Stop Oil, is complaining that all the founding documents omit mention of climate crisis. Carries on in this vein for a while and unclear which option he is supporting. He thinks that sortition would put climate change on the agenda. Just as he starts talking about the actual motion, the chair cuts him off. He says that there are too many branches which have been taken over. Your Party should be for its members.

  • A member from Glasgow, an Equity activist, says that we cannot trust those that are in a position of power. The leadership have failed us. The power should be given to the members. All data should be owned by the branches. “Socialism demands democracy and democracy demands delegate structures.”

  • Next speaker says that delegates are dominated by men with loud voices.

    Our advice would be to support a delegate-only conference - say no to sortiton.

Standing orders are moved by Andrea Gilbert
2:35pm

Andrea tells us that STV was unanimously agreed through crowd editing. Andrea claims we have real debate in front of us - we would disagree, these are limited debates with limited options given to members to pick from.

Andrea speaks to online voting participation saying that this will lead to less exclusion - we would disagree with this position.

Zarah Sultana speaks
2:15pm

Zarah is greeted by “oh Zarah Sultana” chants and a standing ovation.

  • “I am so proud to co-found this party with Jeremy who I have an enormous amount of admiration for.”

  • 55,000 members confirmed

  • “this is a party owned by you its members, not faceless and nameless bureaurcrats… a win for collective leadership is not a win for me, it is a win for you the members. Vote YES to the constitution as amended.”

  • Condemns expulsions from the top

  • Zarah condemns a Muslim woman being man handled out of conference. Corbyn lifts his hands in question. Claudia Webb and Jeremy are talking, along with chair of standing order committee.

  • Zarah says the movement and members will not stand for expulsions and gets a standing ovation.

  • “This party must never be captured from above.”

  • “We need to take the parasitic class on”

  • “We know that the real enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not by dinghy.” - Jeremy and Claudia applaud

  • “I am an anti-Zionist” - Jeremy applauds, the crowd chants FREE FREE PALESTINE

  • “Starmer, Lammy and Shabanna should be held at the Haig”

  • “We shouldn’t just abolish Andrew’s titles, we should abolish the monarchy itself” - standing ovation and Jeremy applauds.

  • Zarah apologises for her role in the hiccups in the party.

  • “I want the working class to control this party, as one day they should control this country.”

  • “We want to replace capitalism with socialism.”

  • Zarah lays out that nationalisation cannot just be re-nationalisation of what has been privatised, it should include food production and banking.

  • Standing ovation as she leaves. Jeremy and Zarah leave the stage together…

Delegates file back into the hall
2pm

Zarah is making her way to conference as delegates file into the hall. Zarah will be addressing conference for the first time this afternoon.

LFI speaks to conference
12:50pm

They are speaking on the need to take on Macron and Starmer. Anyone would feel sorry for how these international speakers have been treated. The leadership has weaponised them against the membership to cut down the time for motion debates and maximise the time where delegates are seated in silence.

Every international speaker has been excellent - but the leadership should never have put them in such a difficult position.

Should we run an anti-austerity platform in May? / WORKERS’ WAGE TAKES TO THE STAGE
12:35pm

  • Obviously - we aren’t going to run on a pro-austerity agenda are we?

  • This is killing time when we could be discussing real issues like the workers’ wage motion that was silenced by the leadership.

  • First speaker manages to get in a dig at The Greens - once again, sectarianism isn’t allowed unless it is against a popular, effective party that is actually doing well in the polls. They end with “one solution, revolution”.

  • We take it back - someone from Newcastle is now arguing against an anti-austerity platform (as a fellow geordie - she isn’t speaking for all of us). I think she is arguing that “we can do better with what there is” in local authority budgets. They think we need a granular approach to re-evaluating every line of spending to save local authorities money. Rather than just blaming top down austerity.

  • Predictably, a Socialist Party speaker is on the platform. They are attacking the Bristol Green Council. They accuse the Greens of charlatanism.

  • Final speaker, speaking against the motion. But they are actually speaking against the stitch up by the leadership. They stopped the workers’ wage motion being heard. This was raised through the standing orders “we have followed all the rules and been ignored”. Claudia Webb cuts the mic. The crowd chants “Let her speak”.

    For context - the workers’ wage was submitted by a member of Weekly Worker with a typo. The leadership used that mistake to take the motion down even though it had hundreds of endorsements. The leadership refused to let other workers’ wage motions to be heard as they said it was duplicated. DemSocs then took this to the standing orders committee - they were ignored. A speaker took to the stage to challenge them, they were silence by the chair. But the conference floor stood with them.

We shouldn’t need to tell you our stance on the vote on whether we are anti-austerity…

Rumours circulating that the Socialist Unity Platform are telling people to reject the constitution
12:28pm

  • We are hearing that the SUP are trying to mobilise people to refuse to ratify the whole of the constitutional document that was amended through last nights vote.

  • Zarah’s WhatsApp channel is encouraging people to ratify the document - likely because without passing this document we would continue to exist in limbo and chaos because there would be no organisational document, and leave everything unresolved.

  • Of course we have issues with the constitution but we think it has to be ratified.

  • If we hadn’t been thrown out from the SUP then we would vote to campaign to ratify the document but we aren’t allowed.

Amendement on trans liberation
12:19pm

  • First speaker: We should be allowed to live freely. And that by centring the oppressed we are truly radical.

  • Second speaker argues “all the oppressed” is not good enough and that we shouldn’t single out trans rights. Booed by conference floor.

  • Third speaker says clearly, “I as a cis-woman do not lose rights by giving rights to trans people” the conference floor gives a standing ovation. Cheering throughout the speech.

  • Fourth speaker argues that there shouldn’t be a “pick and mix list” of groups, every oppressed group should have their own sentence.

Workers’ Movement Commission - roadmap amendment three to organisational committee
12:01pm

  • This is a debate on whether we should have an appointed commission to work out our relationship with the unions.

  • Very little chance for members to influence any of this

  • Claudia Webb picks a participant saying “It is nearly Christmas, the participant in the sparkly top.” a member from the floor replies “with the time you’re taking, it will be nearly easter by the time this debate starts.”

  • First speaker gives the first mention to the Birmingham Bin Strike of the weekend. They are speaking in favour of the commission. They are arguing for trade unionism and that we need a bottom up approach.

  • First speaker speaking against a workers’ movement commission - they are a BMA member. They agree that we need organising in our unions. “But we are not going to get a significant change by appointing the leadership of our current unions to a commission.” They say they are proud to be an organised left group within the BMA organising against genocide. “We have moved the BMA’s position.” “If you want members like me at the forefront of this party then you should vote against this motion. We have fought for two years to have the right to let the BMA organise for Palestine.”

  • One of our co-founders, Luke, tried to get to speak, but was not picked. Here is what he would have said:

    Trade Unions are the muscle of the left, because working class people know - without us, nothing works. When we organise, trade unions show us we have power. Our party must have a strong relationship with the unions, and take the fight for the working class into the streets and the chambers of power.

    But we do not accept the way this option is worded.

    Just like political parties, trade unions have bureaucracies. So often, these are people with comfortable jobs, who see each other every day, and who often think they know better than their members. Often, they are scared of their members, and shut down ways for members to take real control of their organisations.

    There should be trade union affiliation, but it should not be between senior figures at the top - it must be a meeting of rank and file unionists and party members, to determine how to build a powerful, democratic movement.

  • Next speaker speaking for the commission didn’t speak about the motion at all.

  • A speaker from North Northumberland, Hilton Dawson, an ex-Labour MP of 1997-2005, speaks against the need to include senior trade union figures in the commission. He was also the ex-general secretary of the social workers’ union. He is now defending the organisation of this conference. “Be very very careful about those senior trade union figures.” Huge support for his scepticism of leaders and his position “we need mass engagement”. His position is good.

Debate opens on Roadmap amendment two - strategic priorities for local elections
11:46am

  • We are told we have a speaker from La France Insoumise - i.e. we won’t have any member written amendments - this isn’t what democracy looks like

  • The question on the table here is - should we try to get as many candidates as possible or should we be focused on winnable seats.

  • Upon closer inspection of last night’s vote - only around 8,000 people voted - this is claimed to be a product of data issues again...

  • Not sure which option the first participant is speaking for - mentions transphobic MPs who have resigned from YP, Claudia Webb then cuts in. This speaker must be speaking to option A as the only way to defeat of Reform - in our view not a great argument, if we stand candidates for the sake of standing candidates it will mean we look like an establishment political party. We should stand where we have a base.

  • A second speaker gets to speak to option B - they are arguing we need to be trusted. One day we will be looking to win in every constituent, but that is not 2026.

  • A Socialist Party member from Poplar and Limehouse is arguing for as many candidates as possible - unsurprisingly arguing for a no cuts platform. Anyone who goes to an event where a Socialist Party speaker is on a platform will know this argument well… They call for meetings across communities to argue for a no cuts budget. We think it is worth recognising the huge success of Militant in Liverpool in the 1980s in mobilising people against Thatcher-dictated cuts. We also think it is worth recognising that there was base building involved in that, well organised and well prepared. Is that really the same situation we are in now? Could we get tens of thousands of people on the street in cities across the UK over council budgets in 2026?

  • Next speaker is saying this is a false dichotomy - they are arguing that there are no safe seats. They say that we need to stand everywhere because we can defeat Labour, Tories and Reform. We think not a lot of this debate seems to be based on a sober assessment of the electoral landscape. However, the speaker makes the correct position that it should be up to branches whether to stand, not the centre.

  • We would say that everyone should be conscious of the issues our party faces. We shouldn’t stand for the sake of it. But the centre shouldn’t be empowered to dictate to members whether they can or cannot stand.

Debate opens on Roadmap amendment 1 to the organisational strategy
11:30am

  • Only two speakers for each side allowed - yesterday we had three for both sides

  • Our view: neither option is good, option A is the least bad - our voting guide recommends abstain but there is no abstention option on the app. So we would recommend voting option A.

  • We had an amendment to this but of course, members do not have the right to add options, only to debate the options handed to us by the leadership.

  • Cllr Noor Jahan Begum, Redbridge Independents, supports option A. She left Labour over their support for genocide. Something new began to rise in her area, not built in Westminster but formed by the working class. In 2025, the community sent their own message - 1,000 votes for independents, 600 for Labour despite Labour sending 1,000 activists to Redbridge.

  • First speaker for Option B is called - Danielle from Worcestershire speaks. She claims that small groups have been organising to disrupt this event and thinks that option B will protect us. Not sure why she says this. She thinks that Option B will safeguard the party from disruption.

  • Charlie, is invited to speak for Option A, and can’t say where she is from as it is “very complicated”. “We have already said we are allowing dual membership. We have already agreed to be a mass party.” This is the only option that takes these two decisions into account. This is a non-sectarian option. Very good speech.

  • A final speaker for option B is called.

  • The speaker used the be in Labour and The Greens. He says that Option B stops us getting diverted. He says we should focus on ourselves.

A participant is invited to the stage to move the One Year Organisational Strategy
11:23am

She tells us that we need to know who the IA MPs are - she tells us that Shockat is one of them, she doesn’t tell us if Zarah is one of them. She minimises the role of the IA.

She tells us that the org strategy allows us to be outward looking from tomorrow.

She is not really speaking to the details of the paper, rather a key note speech about the political context we are in.

She speaks to the need for direct member involvement in the founding process and claims she is an example of that - how she was picked to speak to this document is unclear. I would imagine picked by the leadership.

The timetable for the CEC has been brought forward will conclude by February.

She also mentions that local branches have a year to become official branches and they don’t have to be rushed into it.

Erik Uden receives a standing ovations
11:22am

He ends his speech calling for any action against genocide.

The Independent run the article “Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana dropped as Your Party leaders”
11:15am

The vote yesterday to exclude MPs from the CEC alongside voting to support a collective leadership model means that no MP can be part of the party’s leadership.

Read their article here.

Die Linke speaker - Erik Uden
11:08am

  • “The German left is the last to lecture anyone on international solidarity”

  • “When in history have the people doing the right thing not been defamed?”

  • “Those that want feel good politics and defeating fascism with love - we don’t live in that world.”

  • Erik references our co-founder’s speech, Andy Walker, that reminded people that yesterday was the anniversary of Thatcher’s demise. Erik tells us that Thatcherism is dead, but the new cannot be born. We are seeing the rise of fascism but that this does not need to be our future.

  • “Capitalism cannot be reformed, it needs to be abolished.”

  • “We cannot just redistribute wealth, we need to ask why wealth has been distributed like this in the first place. A socialist system is our goal.”

  • “Britain was once the centre of imperialism, it threatens to become it again. I am proud to have a party in Britain opposing this.”

  • “We should live the world we want to create,” says the international guest from Der Linke in Germany.

  • Debate was supposed to begin at 11am, it is now 11:18am. There was never enough time for these speeches. The stage management of this event has been done to ensure less time for debate on member-written amendments.

Claudia Webb addresses conference again
11:06am

  • Claudia tells us that Shockat’s speech brought a tear to her eye.

  • She tells us that Shockat stood up and came to Claudia’s defence when she stood for Parliament.

Shockat Adam addresses conference
10:50am

  • Adam praises working with Jeremy

  • “We are running and fighting against the tide of time to save the soul of this nation.”

  • “16 months ago we went to the polls… we were given an opportunity to vote against austerity… selection wasn’t great, it was a race to the bottom. In the election 29 million people cast their votes, 9.7 million vote for Labour. That was less than Jeremy Corbyn got. Reform won 4 million votes. We were presented with clarity.”

  • “The party of Attlee, Bevan and Benn - whose stewards now are Starmer, Streeting and Reeves. These are people who believe in collective punishment, that children should be punished and left in poverty, that we should take away winter fuel payments, that disabled people should face punitive means tests.”

  • “Because of the lack of strong leadership we have seen islamophobia rise above levels we have ever seen before.”

  • One of the worst things in Parliament is when the government claims they are doing everything they can. Yet they still sell arms. They still give them military intelligence. They still train their soldiers. They won’t even challenge their ambassador.

  • “David Lammy, who summons his slavery ancestory at every opportunity, claims it is simply too expensive to implement sanctions on Israel. This was the core argument against the end of slavery. They claimed abolition was too expensive. Now a descendant of an enslaved person uses that same argument to defend a genocide.”

  • 16 months ago, people were chained to establishment parties broke away from them for good.

  • Shockat gets a standing ovation.

Corbyn speaks (again)
10:45am

  • Jeremy starts by saying - this time a few years ago he would have had to be introducing Jonathan Ashworth, no longer the MP for Leicester South, but now he can introduce a much better MP for that same constituency who is sat on the stage with him - Shockat Adam.

  • Corbyn praises Adam’s opposition to austerity, his opposition to welfare cuts etc.

  • Corbyn makes a joke that Adam is very “far sighted” - the floor doesn’t get the joke that Adam was an optician…

RESULTS ARE LIVE
10:28am

  • CEC will be elected by region - narrow vote of 58% to 41% - apparently an incredibly high turnout of 42% in this vote

  • Branch autonomy over its budgets HAS WON - big win for members here - 66.43% supporting branches controlling their own budgets - same turnout

  • Branch quoracy - option A has won, thankfully! Another win for the democratic groupings

  • DUAL MEMBERSHIP HAS PASSED! A huge win for DemBloc even if the options on the table were both bad - 69% supporting dual membership

  • Collective leadership has passed, by the smallest of margins 48% to 51% - a significant defeat for team Corbyn. But there has been no amendment on a Parliamentary convenor heard…

    Political statement results:

  • Mass party - YES

  • Working class party - YES

  • Socialist party - YES

Where is the result on the name? Apparently the name won’t be released until 4pm…

The entirety of both documents will be ratified prior to 4pm via an all member vote.

Our analysis: Some big wins here but the vote for a collective leadership, we predict, will cause big issues for the party going forward. That will be even worse because the parliamentary convenor motion will not be heard at this conference.

Day two is starting (late)
10:17am

Conference is already running behind scheduled. The general mood last night was anger and annoyance - this conference has been staged managed and disempowered members.

We will hear the results of the voting as the first order of business. All eyes will be on which leadership model will be picked - this will define the next few months of leadership campaigns and the nature of the party going forward.

We will also see the result of dual membership, the naming of the party, branch funding models, the political statement and whether MPs can have second jobs.