Strangling the Canary?

Larry O’Hara & Heidi Svenson 20/4/26

This article is about alternative media outlet The Canary, and Your Party YP), but ranges far wider as will be seen, including a critique of how both Mainstream and Left media have covered YP. Get out the popcorn: it’s a long ride but hopefully worth it.

 

 

Our thesis is simple: the Canary is the only (relatively) major outlet holding those running YP (and more recently the Green Party) to account, and as such uniquely important. The period covered is up to early April 2026, but we allude to later developments if relevant. The article structure is as follows:

 

• Introductory remarks/scene-setting, including the Sunday Times article 6/7/25.
• Discussion of whether/why those in/around YP might be subject to state attention.
• Look at selected Mainstream Media (MSM) coverage: BBC/Sky/The Guardian.
• Look at ‘Left’ media coverage: principally The New Statesman/Owen Jones/Novara Media/The Canary.
• Analysis of what actually happened around the Central Executive Committee Elections in early 2026.
• Coverage of those same CEC Elections in the MSM and Left media, highlighting with evidence how the Canary’s coverage was by far the most accurate.
• Exploring why the Canary/Declassified and Andrew Feinstein are enduring problems for the powers that be.
• Outlining the state’s ideal scenario as regards YP and the Media generally.
• Deconstructing an especially malicious attack on the Canary/Declassified/ Feinstein by Benjamin Michna, using the pseudonym Skidrowmedia (and others).
• Analysing a further attack by Corbyn Cult fan Nicola James, using many of the same arguments plus a few others.
• Concluding remarks.

The test of this article’s usefulness is whether it provides sufficient information/context to enable readers to make sense of not just what has transpired hitherto but what happens next both within and beyond YP. You be the judge.

 

 

YOUR PARTY OR THEIRS?

Some involved in Your Party (hereafter YP) regard it (or perhaps used to) as a genuinely insurgent force, aiming to break up the existing party system (as do the Greens) but unlike the Greens go further, and facilitate socialist transformation. Others involved in YP, those running it from inception (Karie Murphy and the ‘Peace & Justice Collective’) regard YP as a vehicle for Jeremy Corbyn worship, and re-running the 2017 General Election, but with Corbyn somehow winning this time, supported by loose ‘community groups’ often with no socialist affiliations or aspirations at all[1], with the one issue of Gaza functioning as an all-embracing signifier to mask all contradictions within YP, including those of social class[2]. Or, if winning a 2017 rematch is not possible, at the very least bequeathing YP to persons unknown (called Murphy) as the modern equivalent of a medieval monstrance reliquary, containing Corbyn’s trademark cap, a Charter of Landlords Rights, a Sacred List of proscribed Leftist groups and of course the 2017 Labour Manifesto. Funded they hope in perpetuity by those who joined YP on the assumption it was a political party. That faction, courtesy of a skewed Central Executive election they (misleadingly called ‘The Many’ though actually a Centrally Chosen Few Masquerading As The Many) conducted themselves (rather than get a reputable external organisation to do as Standing Orders originally stated) are now firmly in control, suppressing dissent in a way Morgan McSweeney (or John Golding[3]) would be proud of. Even though ‘The Many’ (hereafter mostly TM) grouping of Corbyn acolytes only announced its existence in January 2026, because those guiding it have run YP since the beginning as a short-hand we refer to them as the ‘TM clique’ before that date. An alternative formulation, not inaccurate, could have been the ‘Corbyn Cult’ as it operates like one both now and previously. We do not use that formulation here (save occasionally) as it deserves rigorous sociological elucidation. But bear it in mind, and too the difference between those determining TM strategy, such as Murphy, Corbyn, Laura Alvarez, Alex Satow, Ben Nunn, Laura Smith and subordinates merely carrying it out, repeating propaganda lines without understanding what they mean. It is not always clear from the outside where certain individuals stand: whereas we can safely characterise CEC member Hannah Hawkins as a belligerent parrot, with Central Executive Committee (CEC) Chair Jenn Forbes, more difficult to say: is grotesque rudeness, poor grasp of basic logic and total disregard for proper procedure a clever bluff, concealing deeper and devious understanding? We think not on balance: what did Lenin say about useful idiots?

 

 

THE CANARY SOARS

This is not the place to explore TM clique suppressing of dissent in detail; our focus here is media (including social media) coverage, though various clique actions in this regard will be referred to. Analysing media coverage is essential, to understand exactly why Canary[4] YP coverage stands out like a diamond in a dung-heap. In other words, you can best appreciate how good the Canary are by comparing them to what is on offer elsewhere. We do not concentrate on all media: little point looking at obvious hostiles like the Telegraph/Times/Daily Mail for instance, though the Sunday Times is mentioned below. Even for those media covered, we only examine enough to (in our view) accurately represent their approach. The Canary is crucial due to investigating aspects/stories related to YP the Mainstream Media (hereafter MSM) either does not feature, or if it does, certainly not objectively. While honourable mention should be made of the Morning Star’s Andrew Murray, much prominent Left media (small outlets aside) have not come close to The Canary, in either range or depth. These two facts, we suggest, explain why the Canary has been subject to intense criticism and disinformation, some explored below, which we fully anticipate ratcheting up: This article explains why.

 

 

THE SUNDAY TIMES: A DAGGER IN THE BACK

The story that sparked civil war in what became YP and a downward slide not yet complete was patently provided by Karie Murphy to Gabriel Pogrund at the Sunday Times appearing 6/7/25. Pogrund has history with Murphy: no way would his hatchet job on Corbyn’s time as Labour Leader ‘Left Out’, co-written with Patrick Maguire, have been feasible without extensive co-operation from Corbyn’s inner circle[5]. As David Miller has pointed out “I am told that even junior members of Corbyn’s team were tapped on the shoulder and invited to brief Pogrund”[6]. Pogrund is a loathsome journalist who collaborated from first to last with McSweeney/Labour Together to propagate the lie Corbyn’s Labour was antisemitic, as outlined elsewhere[7]. As such, he should have been booted into the gutter where he belongs. Though ‘Left Out’ reported widespread staff discontent with Murphy’s bullying methods, the authors knew others would write about this anyway—including a contemporaneous book by Owen Jones from the same (Penguin) publishing house[8]. ‘Left Out’ allots her a prominent role, even defending Murphy over a draconian dress code and states “without her the project would never have had its chance”[9]. A project, incidentally, these razor-sharp intellects never define.

 

With this background in mind, it is worth re-examining that Sunday Times article. Pogrund candidly admits Zarah’s social media post of 3/7/25 announcing the new party was viewed 7.8 million times on X and received 240,000 Instagram likes. However “unbeknown to anyone beyond a small circle of senior Leftists, the usually peaceable Islington North MP and former Labour Party leader was furious about Sultana’s post. He agrees the moment demands a new party or movement to soak up dissent on the left and in minority communities—just not the one that was announced”. While the obvious immediate response to such temporising, Corbyn’s stance since 2020, is Primo Levi’s “If Not Now, When?” and the addendum “If Not Us Who?” a further point worth making. Pogrund here concedes it was him, in this very article, lighting the touch-paper that exposed intra-Left conflict publicly. His motives, as a vicious anti-Leftist Zionist, are at least transparent, the very article head-line ‘Comrades of Chaos’ refers to mayhem he was gleefully unleashing to achieve that end. The motives of those leaking the story to him are more reprehensible: using the bourgeois press to undermine the British Left’s best opportunity since the late 1970’s Bennite ascendancy, which to its credit, despite limitations (and Benn’s undoubted charisma) centred around policies not personalities[10]. To what end were messages leaked? Merely maintaining the dead-end Corbyn cult, beautifully encapsulated by Murphy confederate Pamela Fitzpatrick’s WhatsApp—”A room of people decided something against Jeremy’s wishes…neither Jeremy nor Laura deserves to be treated with such a lack of respect. Perhaps some thought could be given to that”. Indeed it can: what sycophantic apolitical BS, but showing, sadly, that from Day One the TM clique merely wanted a semi-monarchical personality cult, not a political party. To adapt the US phrase—“No Kings/No Masters: except in Islington North”. Pathetic. Pogrund admits a meeting of the ‘Organising Committee’ (aimed at forming the new party) took a vote, but echoes the TM line that they were ‘plotters’, repeating the view of “Corbyn’s allies” that “the group had no authority to vote on anything and that such an exercise undermined the dialogue and consensus supposedly at the heart of the venture”. Yet surely the job of an Organising Group is to, well, organise, to drive a project forward? If it had been made clear to these non-P&JP recruits their role was not to use considerable accumulated expertise to do just that, instead to defer to Corbyn on everything, they surely would not have joined the OG in the first place, as second-class members. And any idea the TM clique even know the meaning of words like ‘dialogue’ and ‘consensus’ has been well and truly exploded by their actions as the dominant CEC faction. He reproduces tweets from six people on the OC WhatsApp Group: while four (Gibbons/Fitzpatrick/Jackson/Murphy) clearly articulate the Corbyn position, the other two say nothing substantial.  He did not need quotes ‘on the record’ because the tweets neatly provided them. It was crystal clear then, and is now, that this opening salvo in internal YP strife before the party even started came from those we term TM. No surprise they have never condemned it, after all, it set the precedent for many more such interventions.

A subsequent key player has been Megan Kenyon, of the New Statesman, who we have written about elsewhere (on X)[11], and will return to below, a crucial conduit feeding TM clique disinformation into the MSM.  The very epitome of a ‘client journalist’.

 

 

JEREMY AND KARIE

One brutal fact cannot be overstated: the MSM happily connive with TM against Sultana and all believing in YP democracy because they know even before recent health issues Corbyn was no match for the establishment: standing idly by while allies were expelled from Labour, not prioritising deselection of right-wing MPs, not grasping the nettle of Zionism, being bamboozled by the snake Starmer into calling for a second Brexit referendum in 2019 and so on. Face facts, the enemy does: Corbyn is not the future, way past his political bed-time as a sole leader. Harsh but true: those worshipping at his shrine are deluded cultists, largely unable or unwilling to think for themselves, and in the process Corbyn’s valuable political legacy is being trashed by his most fervent disciples. Truly tragic as unlike Starmer (for example) Corbyn is not and never has been personally corrupt and spent many years fighting for a myriad of just and often unpopular causes: not least Irish self-determination. That his long service has spawned a personality cult is the charitable take on the TM clique’s decimation of YP and refusal to set up branches/recognise those already existing. There are other interpretations: aside from possible sabotage from within by state assets, another plausible scenario is Corbyn and those around him see YP as following the Diem25 (Varoufakis) and La France Insoumise (Melenchon) model: a fan-base of disembodied ‘supporters’ whose role is to provide funds, adulation and follow without question whatever pronouncements are issued by the (unaccountable) stars running the show.  His acolytes fail to grasp Corbyn is no longer a Left-populist insurgent, but a tired veteran MP craving the quiet life, Arsenal winning the Premier League and spending more quality time at his allotment. Sadly for him, the quiet life is a non-starter, Arsenal’s chances are very much in the balance: only the allotment seems likely, unless plans by turncoat former Deputy PM Angela Rayner to decimate them affect Islington too[12]. A great shame because he would have made a fantastic Your Party Life President, and his Gaza Genocide Tribunal plus highlighting the US blockade of Cuba so as to starve them into submission have been outstanding[13]. But he was never cut out to be Labour Leader in the first place and certainly isn’t cut out to be YP Leader now.

On one level, the whole sad Corbyn/Murphy situation calls to mind the relationship between an ailing Edward III and Alice Perrers, though admittedly we are not quite sure where Laura Alvarez and Len McCluskey fit in! Murphy rules the YP roost: her electronic signature pervades all key YP documents for instance, she interrogated possible ‘sortitioned’ members to rubber-stamp CEC Elections, and seemingly texts YP Chair Jenn Forbes during CEC meetings to tell her what to say. There is perhaps a form of atonement here: Pogrund and Maguire recount external adviser Bob Kerslake’s view that at one point Murphy “as well as serving as Corbyn’s Chief of Staff, primary political adviser and office manager, Murphy was effectively running the entire Labour Party”[14]. Owen Jones, not especially hostile to Murphy, concedes she often made decisions without reference to Corbyn[15]. Yet Corbyn in the end sacked her[16], a decision we are sure he now regrets. Having done it once, he will not do it again, even if it means reducing YP to ashes, hence pathologically crediting her by name at every opportunity.

 

The TM vision of Murphy/Forbes—acquiesced in by a disinterested Corbyn—is essentially Labour 2:0 shading into Labour 3:0: the addition nothing positive, just more refined mechanisms for crushing dissent and disempowering members that even Starmer would relish. The YP political statement (regarding which, like much else there was no proper debate on at Founding Conference, nor since) is vague when it should be specific: “We reject a capitalist order that is responsible for grotesque levels of inequality both at home
and abroad.  We favour the extension of democracy over the economy, including the public
ownership of key sectors and services”[17]. What exactly does extension of democracy over the economy mean? Clearly not worker’s control or this would have been spelt out. And which key sectors and services? Is compensation to be paid, and so on. The policy points suggested for YP supported candidates in the May 2026 local elections are only two: opposition to cuts and austerity plus commitment to divest in Israeli companies due to the genocide. Neither fleshed out or inspiring. 

 

 

ELECTORAL FRAUD?

While we suspected it at the time, with the benefit of hindsight it is now blindingly obvious TM never intended YP to be a socialist formation and therefore did not want either properly functioning branches or socialist YP candidates if there were/are non-socialist ‘independent’ groups already. The First Year Organisational Strategy document says this in a form of words passed 57% to 43% at the Founding Conference: “For the unique case of the 2026 Local Government elections in England, the Party will seek to support all Independent socialist candidates of good standing where there is evidence of candidates being engaged in progressive community campaigning and having the support of their local communities or trade unions branches”. It is clear many candidates YP HQ has supported are not socialist. However, the real killer that proves dishonesty bordering on fraud from the outset is found in another part of the same document. Section 7v states “for the unique case of the 2026 local elections only, in the absence of properly established national branch and regional party infrastructure the Independent Alliance and Members’ Oversight Committee shall facilitate democratic selections of candidates by local members in their area, under one member, one vote. Due diligence shall be undertaken, conforming to rules against misuse for political purposes laid down under the standing orders, and a full candidate list shall be submitted to the Electoral Commission by the Independent Alliance of MPs. The Party will agree not to support any candidate where there is any unresolved local conflict. Criteria encouraging local membership endorsement and selection will be prepared. This paper will seek the views of local members and will be published on our website”. For a start, many things promised have never happened: there has been no democratic selection of candidates in any area, and the Members Oversight Committee is a dead duck. More fundamentally, there is a disprovable lie at the heart of this  paragraph: the seeming acceptance as if fact that given the May elections were six months after Conference, YP standing its own candidates was not feasible.  Yet events on the Far right of the political spectrum show this to have been untrue, and the claim of a “unique” situation bogus. On 1/4/26 Rupert Lowe of Restore (a Reform breakaway) announced “The Restore Britain team have consulted with hundreds of members all over the country about how we should approach the May elections, considering we have only been officially registered as a political party for twelve days. The elections take place in 36 days…Our priority has been on establishing local branches, we have spoken to hundreds and hundreds of amazing volunteers. Local infrastructure is forming all over Britain. Restore Britain’s small team have done in weeks what it has taken other parties years to achieve…Dozens of local branch meetings have taken place already, with more happening every day”. From his perspective, while Restore is not ready to stand in many places, nonetheless “there are ten elections in Great Yarmouth – nine county council seats, and one borough council by-election. Those are the only elections we will be contesting in May”[18]. While Restore are only standing a few candidates, that they had already got branches up and running and standing candidates at all after only twelve days shows TM clique excuses for not forming branches, and not standing YP candidates en masse (given many months have elapsed since YP started) to have been lies. The latest, uttered at the 12/4 CEC was that there are “a few priority branches” but details cannot yet be given out as TM want “all members informed at the same time, rather than on Twitter or by a left-wing newspaper. The local members will simply receive an email to say their branch will be formed”[19]. In other words, there are still no branches: and you have to ask, what kind of organisation is it that doesn’t want details of branches published? Not a proper political party that’s for sure.

That the published 2026 Election procedure was/is a hollow joke is underlined by the case of Newham. In that Borough, YP are endorsing the ‘Newham Independents’ (NI) slate. Yet YP members in Newham who approached NI have been ignored, and local members given no say in any candidate selection[20]. The YP database momentarily on the internet showed three hundred members in Newham. This surely constitutes “unresolved local conflict”—the same pretext used by the TM clique to refuse endorsement of Islington Community Independents (ICI)[21]. The problem with ICI from a TM clique point of view is they are socialists and even worse some supported the Grassroots Left slate!

Another indication bluster about six months being too short a time to choose YP candidates has been provided by another source: ‘The Art of The Impossible’ book on the Brexit Party’s formation. The authors recount how 96 hours before nominations closed for the 2019 European Elections, over an Easter weekend, while they had candidate submissions, there were still no candidates selected and therefore completed nomination papers, a situation worsened by the person in charge of the database leaving in a huff having permanently disabled that database. Undeterred, Farage & associates went through 1300 application forms by hand and completed the process in time[22].  The Brexit Party went on to become the largest UK party, winning 29 of 73 seats. The implications of both this episode and the Restore one: there was never, and is not now, any objective reason why there are no functioning YP branches nor a full raft of YP candidates in the May elections. These things have not happened because the TM clique do not want them to happen, and never have. Right from the start their strategy was an unholy alliance between the clique and non-socialist ‘community groups’, with a few (very few) legitimate YP candidates as window-dressing. Hence the question of electoral fraud: perpetrated against not just disenfranchised YP members, but voters who may want a socialist alternative.

 

 

ENEMIES OF THE STATE?

 

The skeletal official YP programme markedly contrasts with Zarah’s—‘We are not here to beg for crumbs off the table. We’re taking the fucking lot’ [23], indicating both a generational and political split. As it was in McSweeney’s interests to crush The Canary in 2016, it was (and is) certainly in TM’s interests to do them, and Wheeldon (sympathetic to Sultana) specifically, down now. However, it defies belief that Zarah Sultana, unapologetic Anti-Zionist and Leftist, would not also be subject to malign intervention by the British and other states. While more widely known since the Gaza genocide, the malevolent influence of the Israeli state and their lackeys on UK politics undermining the Left, specifically Corbyn’s Labour, was forensically analysed in one book published May 2023 even before the genocide following Al-Aqsa Flood started, providing full chapter and verse. This is Asa Winstanley’s superb book ‘Weaponising Anti-Semitism’ covering in minute and excruciating detail exactly how this was done, no depth too low for these people not to stoop to, and certainly no shortage of money for sub-contractors[24]. The fact Corbyn in office 2015-19 was perceived as a threat the secret state (and the media) mobilised against underscores that Sultana will be/is a target now. And Your Party too: anybody who thinks the secret state wouldn’t bother with YP must be blissfully unaware of the state infiltrating fringe political groups revealed by the Undercover Police Inquiry and the US Cointelpro programme, aimed at domestic dissidents[25]. Regarding these shores, ex-South African intelligence officer and whistle-blower Gordon Winter, author of a definitive book on BOSS (Bureau of State Security[26]) withdrawn from sale and many copies pulped–always a good sign[27]–had extensive dealings with UK Special Branch (as SO15 were called then). As chronicled by Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine, when “interviewed by Tom Mangold, for the Panorama programme in 1981 that was the first BBC TV documentary about the British security and intelligence services…[Winter] said: ‘British intelligence has a saying that if there is a left-wing movement in Britain bigger than a football team our man is the captain or the vice-captain, and if not, he is the referee and he can send any man off the field and call our man on at any time he likes’ Winter’s comment was the only piece of the programme which the spooks insisted be cut before transmission”[28]. Just think about that, and shudder.

 

 

 

We have written about what is, essentially a British Cointelpro[29]. Our magazine, Notes From the Borderland, has for 29 years both in print and on this web-site put on record secret state antics regarding political groups right across the spectrum: ones that do not make it to the Guardian: check us out. If fringe groups have been subject to state attention, YP, and genuine firebrand Sultana, who reaches out to unashamedly far left groups, certainly will be, and is, a marked woman. Relentless attacks on Zarah and the TM clique’s refusal to empower members has understandably caused some to leave YP in droves, due not just to a toxic atmosphere (epitomised by Corbyn lap-dog pseudo-independent CEC member Sam Gorst posting a mock gravestone on X aimed at other CEC members[30]) but also because those members doing something, proto-branches (and the whole Scottish YP), have met nothing but obstruction and witch-hunting from the Centre. While partly down to the Labour 2:0 mindset/Labour 3:0 mutation, there also will be, and are, bad faith actors working to a Cointelpro type agenda to create demoralisation and confusion, some undoubtedly at a high level. No evidence to think Zarah is one, but other candidates spring to mind.

Your Party is now polling a spectacular 0-1%, but it was not always so: in July 2025 (before civil war broke out, precipitated by the Sunday Times article) 18% of voters indicated they might vote for such a party in polling conducted 6-7/7/25[31]. Currently eclipsed by the Greens, it is not written in the stars YP under different management could not rise again: and by so doing constitute far more of a threat to the establishment than the purely parliamentary-focussed Greens.  Admittedly something made less likely by the latest CEC proscription of socialists 12/4/25: and the decision of both the SWP and Counterfire to walk away.

 

 

ENTER THE MAIN-STREAM MEDIA

As stated above, we have not scoped all outlets, especially those hostile by definition, but instead look at three people might imagine to be at least neutral in their reporting, even if not supportive.

 

 

THE BBC: BIASED BROADCASTING CORPORATION

 The outlets that more than any other falsely accused Jeremy Corbyn of being antisemitic when Labour leader were the BBC[32] and the Guardian—as Jonathan Cook has repeatedly and eloquently shown[33]. The BBC’s approach, as befits their long service to the British establishment, has been canny overall. That said, they started off (4/7/25) with a falsehood, claiming Sultana quitting Labour and co-launching a new party with Corbyn “seems to have come as news to him”[34]. For the Zoom meeting Corbyn flounced out of had long been planned and was held 3/7/25.  The claim Sultana “appears to have jumped the gun, taking not just Corbyn but others involved in the project by surprise” establishes a trope used time and again: an impetuous (even Muslim but does not need explicitly stating here) woman acting before thinking. The BBC do not mention Sultana was in the majority at that meeting: doesn’t fit the stereo-type. A subsequent, quite thoughtful article (25/7/25) outlined how the new party potentially threatened not just Labour but also the Greens[35].

At this point, and this is only our conjecture as long-term media scrutinisers, we think the BBC took an editorial decision to dial down coverage of YP, unless it be negative. For those who say this is conspiracy theorising two facts. Firstly, the undoubtedly political decision taken by the BBC to massively platform Reform has been remarked on by many commentators and was pre-eminently political[36]. Secondly the facts regarding Green Party coverage around this time: not just the headline about Polanski’s Question Time appearance (or not) but a significant change in how the media generally report the Green Party under Polanski compared to previously. No longer seen as just a fringe protest group but a serious contender for power with positive policies[37]. The Green Party Leadership contest won by Zack Polanski formally started 1/8/25 (ending 30/8/25) but was flagged up before then: Polanski launched his campaign 11/5/25, and shortly after nominations opened 2/6/25 Polanski’s slick operation posted an endorsement of him by 107 Green councillors[38] and closed 30/6/25.  Smart money even before voting started was placed on Polanski winning: which he did with 84% of the vote[39]. To those wondering where we are going with this, the answer is so did Corbyn in 2017 have positive policies: it was the Establishment mistake in thinking that they were so unrealistic focussing on them would do Labour damage. The reverse was the case. A mistake not repeated in 2019, or indeed between 2017-19, when reasoned discussion of Labour policies was drowned out by the bogus antisemitism narrative, and sabotage from the Labour Right/spooks/the media and last but not least the Israeli lobby, as Winstanley showed.

 

 

It is the job of spooks to monitor (and influence) political trends, and the stark choice facing the ruling class in Summer 2025 in terms of who would be a ‘Left’ safety-valve opposition to an already cratering popularity wise Starmer government was between a nascent Your Party on the one hand, with a clearly defined anti-capitalist/anti-Zionist wing in the seeming ascendant, epitomised by Sultana, and on the other, a Green Party wearing appropriated Left Labour clothes led by Polanski. While Polanski is undoubtedly charismatic (to some: we have never been impressed) his belief in a ‘progressive’ form of original Zionism[40] would have been well-known to those who matter within the state, as too his joining in dogpiling Corbyn over bogus antisemitism allegations, and previous Lib-Dem affiliation. Thus, a Green Party led by him is/was infinitely more acceptable than a genuinely insurgent force led, God forbid, by the likes of Sultana. Only a hypothesis we know, but worth consideration. It does not impute bad faith to Polanski in any way, merely notes he is not only less of a threat, but very unlikely to have the nerves of steel essential to implement any genuinely radical programme. While Polanski has claimed he missed the crucial debate about Zionism being Racism at the on-line Green Conference due to an unavoidable prior commitment (gyrating on stage at the 28/3 Together shindig) others (and not just us, but the enemy) might conclude if he hasn’t the bottle to face down anti-Zionists at his own Conference capitalism is safe for a while yet…

Our hypothesis is YP gets a bad deal from the likes of the BBC not by accident but because the Greens are seen as a far more amenable opposition than what YP at one stage seemed like it might become: an insurgent mass Left anti-capitalist formation. In that context, BBC coverage of YP, and it favouring the TM clique (as the far ‘safer’ faction), makes terrible sense.

BBC reporting (24/9/25) of Sultana’s Membership portal launch gave the last word not to her, but the TM clique, whose statement hilariously claimed Karie Murphy neither had “access to or control over any funds”[41]. Followed by another report giving most prominence to platitudes by Corbyn that the party would “belong to the grassroots” and the last word to a YP X account “for those who joined under the previous system last week, please be assured your data and membership is secure and will be migrated across”[42].  Did the TM clique ever mean that? Doubtful, but even if so, soon came up with a better plan: refuse the money and data, while publicly claiming Zarah was the problem. That TM plan went well—if the aim was sabotage that is. And the BBC, when push came to shove, happily connived in that by spreading TM lies about transfer of funds from MOU. The BBC’s Sam Francis put it thus (7/11/25) in a passage worth quoting at length for its sheer mendacity—

“The plan had been to transfer all the money and data from MoU to Your Party after it was registered with the Electoral Commission on 30 September, then wind up the company. But the money, believed to be around £800,000, has not yet been transferred. Last week, the founding board of MoU, which included former Labour mayor of North of Tyne Combined Authority Jamie Driscoll, resigned en masse – making Sultana the sole director. In a joint resignation statement, the three directors insisted they wanted to transfer the funds, but Your Party officials had ignored questions about governance and legal liabilities.

Your Party officials have dismissed MoU’s complaints as irrelevant and accused it of shifting the goalposts. Officials claimed they sent multiple proposals to move the funds, but were ignored by MoU. A Your Party spokesman said “We are focused on delivering a successful founding conference for our members. While this task is made considerably harder by the continued retention of Your Party funds by MOU Operations Ltd, we will not allow anything or anyone to stop this party from going ahead”.

The meagre (and to the uninformed pitiful) response to TM clique allegations the BBC printed was this:

“A spokesman for Sultana said: “Zarah is in the process of transferring all funds and data to Your Party, as she has already made clear publicly. Obviously, she has a duty to conduct essential due diligence as part of this process.”

You may ask why is this article mendacious? The answer: a week earlier, on 30/10/25, Steve Topple of the Canary exposed the real story behind the MOU financial conflict between Zarah/the MOU and the TM clique: i.e. a full eight days before this was published[43]. While declarations by the former Directors alone could be dismissed, and duly were by the TM clique as “irrelevant and…shifting the goalposts”. Indeed, “Officials claimed they sent multiple proposals to move the funds, but were ignored by MoU”.  This article could not be so dismissed. In it Topple definitively refuted TM clique lies about the funds held by MOU Ltd. Using emails the veracity of which is unquestioned, Topple showed the TM/MSM narrative that the MOU and Zarah were malevolently withholding money from YP was false: MOU repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) tried to transfer all money, along with potential financial liabilities arising due to the TM clique referring Zara/MOU to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the first place[44]. No way would Francis not know this. The key question: did he himself create a false narrative, or was he directed to? If so, by who?

 

Maybe some small desire to make amends for the disgraceful reporting above influenced BBC reporting of the Founding Conference by Francis (1/12/25)? It was fair enough (apart from not calling out the disgraceful way it was chaired/debate prevented) if a little naïve: for instance this claim hasn’t aged well—“branches will now be built across the UK, with local members given greater autonomy over selecting representatives and punishing those that fail to toe the party line”[45]Francis spoke to without misrepresenting some ordinary members: no doubt entirely a coincidence this was almost his last BBC assignment: since January 2026 he now works for politics.eu. Should he care to enlighten us now he has left that cesspit of genocide apologists, we’re all ears. Contact us.

 

 

 

SKY’S THE LIMIT

 

You may (probably won’t) be surprised to learn Sky YP coverage is crap too. An early article (7/8/25[46]) by Alexandra Rogers (described as a ‘Political Reporter’) focuses virtually exclusively on who will be “crowned” leader: Jeremy or Zarah. She quotes the (as usual anonymous source) saying Zarah is “highly ambitious but completely untested as leader” who “had a lot of growing up to do”—nice ageist trope there. And guess what: Elizabeth I became Queen at 25 yet was unquestionably England’s greatest ruler, Joan of Arc was a successful teenager until misogynists got to work, and that Greta Thunberg has done quite well too. So you know what: Sky and the sexist losers who slag Zarah off, can all do one. She may be a diamond that needs polish, but a diamond nonetheless. Another Rogers piece says it in the headline (presumably all Sky viewers take in) “Sultana accused by Corbyn allies of encouraging ‘ultra leftists’ to disrupt Your Party Conference” (21/11/25[47]). This piece appearing over a week before Conference started reveals it as classic ‘client journalism’—not straightforward reporting but creating a dishonest narrative. In this case, Rogers was tasked to wilfully reformulate YP members desire for a sovereign conference as a possible plan to “storm the stage and seize the weekend’s agenda to disrupt proceedings”.  The reason for misrepresentation was simple: the TM clique consciously planned to deny debate on all amendments but one (and did) and knew they were going to introduce top-down and undemocratic options, thus wanted to get their retaliation in first, presenting possible attempts by members to challenge this as disruption. Yet if indeed this was a member-led party, Founding Conference should by definition have been sovereign, including those present being able to change the order of proceedings and choose their own Chair, on the day. All entirely democratic. But this was not the TM clique’s vision: they had imposed Regional Assemblies/Sortitioned delegates/restricted voting choices/scheduled an ever-expanding plethora of external speakers (to reduce debate time) in order to prevent this very eventuality. Hence this red-baiting reformulation of potential democratic manoeuvres as disruption. And to make sure, employed Pound-Shop security goons to flank the stage. Chicago 1968 it was most definitely not. Zarah (as usual) was anathematised for daring to say “I really believe in members taking control”. Unspeakable heresy from a TM clique point of view, entirely distinct from St Jeremy’s frequent pious reference to a “member-led Party”. No, utterly different: in fact the political equivalent of Schrodinger’s Cat, when you think about it (but not too hard please: lots more media sewage to wade through).

Another Sky article by a different ‘Political Reporter’ Faye Brown (so was Alexandra Rogers only on work experience?) covering the CEC Election Campaign launch quoted someone ‘with knowledge of the list’ (anonymous of course) saying the TM slate would “reflect a broad left politics”. Yet in the light of the TM clique endorsing numerous former/recent Tories in the May 2026 elections, what was the point? To be fair, this article has some policy detail, showing the GL slate was anti-capitalist, and by unstated inference Corbyn’s not. Though again the headline (as with previous Labour coverage) redefines democracy as division and personalises politics: “Your Party hit by new split as Corbyn and Sultana battle for control”[48]. And GB News: we won’t go there, but understand James Schneider does, frequently…

 

 

GUARDIAN OF THE STATUS QUO

True to form, the Guardian role regarding YP is especially dishonest, but unfortunately influential among left-leaning (passive) YP members and all who imagine the Guardian is a progressive newspaper. Sticking with the MOU fund story, how about this: on 28/10/25 the Guardian ran a charming story by (step forward) Aletha Adu headlined ‘Your Party to launch legal action against three of its ‘rogue’ founders, sources say’[49]. The article claimed the MOU Directors were “holding supporters funds to ransom and undermining its founding process ‘despite direct pleas from Jeremy and Zarah’”. The attempt to rope Zarah into this tissue of lies is especially egregious because as the three Directors 29/10 statement says, on 29/9 only one MP (patently Zarah) agreed to data and money being handed over to YP: the other five declined. Adu’s fiction continued in the same dishonest vein, with no right of reply afforded, and included the passage “Party insiders say the deadline for the final transfer had passed on Friday night, prompting the decision to pursue legal action”. In which case, we might ask, why have the TM clique still, six months later, not yet pursued legal action against Zarah, who still holds £600,000 of funds? The answer is, like previous MOU Directors, Zarah quite rightly wants the same legal assurances regarding personal liability they asked for. And as they are entirely reasonable, legal action would be unlikely to succeed, which is not to say, as part of what increasingly seems like a TM strategy to reduce YP to ashes, they might not try such as part of their political death-rattle. Adu’s 28/10/25 Guardian article understandably elicited a furious response from Driscoll Winter and Feinstein (29/10/25) one key passage stating “Your Party have claimed in emails and social media statements that we delayed the data transfer. We repeatedly asked them to stop making factually incorrect names of this nature. They gave hostile briefings to journalists. We behaved with integrity”[50]. Disinformation from the TM clique did not stop, nor did the Guardian stop disseminating it….

 

 

A mere two weeks later on 13/11/25 Corbyn & the other Independent Alliance MPs had the chutzpah to issue a statement on X attacking Sultana regarding those YP funds now under her control, stating “A small portion of these funds was today transferred to Your Party. This is insufficient. We will continue to pursue the immediate transfer of all the money that was donated by supporters to get a new party off the ground, alongside a resolution to outstanding legal issues”. This referred to the fact that very day (presumably during banking hours) £200,000 was transferred from MOU to YP. They did not mention the figure, nor did an online Guardian piece under Nadeem Badshah’s by-line at 2319, when these facts would surely have been known. Tellingly, the article concedes in passing Sultana had offered to transfer £600,00 from MOU to YP but makes nothing of it. Yet Electoral Commission records show a week later £200,000 more was transferred to YP, then on 26/11 another £200,000. And for good measure, £70,067 27/11/25: all before Conference 29/11/25. It is not only inconceivable Badshah did not know how much money was imminent: this article (and the MP’s X post) were intended to present a negative spin on events. Rather confirmed by Badshah’s closing statement that “Party officials were seeking a sum of about £800,000 from MOU Operations and had threatened to take legal action against the company”[51]. In other words, the clique knew the bulk of the money was incoming and when (in regular tranches) but deliberately chose to misleadingly portray Zarah’s actions. No mention of the Corbyn clique’s bad faith reference of Zarah to the Information Commissioner’s Office over the portal, nor reminding readers of what Badshah herself admitted a few lines earlier: Zarah/MOU had offered the money but been rebuffed. The MP’s X attack timing was deliberate; hours before, and intended to undermine, Zarah’s appearance on Question Time that night. Online just after Question Time finished, the Guardian piece was clearly aimed at aiding that strategy, by creating an immediate negative impression on many readers who would have only come across her for the first time on QT and become interested in finding out more. The article headline sums up the Guardian’s snide stance: ‘Your Party receives ‘small portion’ of withheld supporter’s donations’. We could pick out other articles to show just how contemptible the Guardian is, but trust we have proven our case sufficiently. Though should point out it ill behoves the Guardian to accuse anybody of financial chicanery when their parent company the Scott Trust is a massive tax-avoidance racket and always has been.

At this stage worth outlining the key (even if contradictory) MSM narrative themes:

• Main debate is about personalities/leadership: Jeremy/TM vs Zarah/Grassroots Left. Important perspectives outside that binary framework such as Eco-Socialist Horizons, Organising 4 Popular Power, Democratic Bloc, Platform For Democracy in Your Party are basically ignored.
• Everything is presented as ridiculously amateurish and terminally fractious: along the lines of what do you expect from the Left? Pogrund’s Sunday Times piece the perfect template for this narrative.
• Despite conveying a picture of all-round YP incompetence (see Point 2), Zarah Sultana (and anybody deemed guilty of associating with her like MOU) is more to blame than anybody else for everything that goes wrong. The YP launch, agreed by a majority of those on the Organising Committee, is instead presented as an impulse whim of Zarah alone.
• Sultana’s attempts to call out misogyny/being excluded are not only depicted as untrue, but actually evidence of her petulance and acting as a gun-jumping wrecking ball.
• Under no circumstances is attention to be drawn to the fact Zarah does not run YP, Murphy does, and certainly not the logical corollary that if things have gone wrong, this might in some way be down to those who have run YP (like Murphy) since the beginning and do still.

While further examples of MSM coverage follow below, an interpretative base-line has hopefully been laid down, a prism through which to view other coverage.

 

THE LEFT PRESS/MEDIA

Some Left media outlets (no mainstream) such as the Crispin Flintoff show[52] have covered YP even-handedly, allowing different shades of YP opinion (albeit usually excluding the largest: Democratic Bloc) to set out their views. Various small on-line outlets such as The Left Lane, have provided good YP coverage[53], and the Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist blog[54], combining detail on local politics with extensive commentary/detail on YP deserves  special mention. A superb resource. That said, the above outlets (along with the far-left press) have a tiny reach, as do most contributions increasingly on the Substack platform, of widely varying quality, some very good indeed such as the Red Mole Substack, put out by sophisticated Trotskyist Duncan Chappel: always thought-provoking and puts YP traumas in valuable international perspective[55]. An early account (up to mid-October) of YP’s gestation by Ben Sellers for The Democracy Collaborative is an admirably balanced summary[56]. Final accolade here goes to Siobhan Ovey’s amazing Substack article (26/3/26). It charts in excruciating detail her journey inside YP, from initial agreement with the TM clique that all opposing them are divisive wreckers to a developing realisation the wreckers are in fact the TM clique. Sadly like too many others she has left: the challenge for those remaining is can YP be turned into a party worth her re-joining[57]. Finally, no mention of Left media is complete without drawing attention to the entertaining, acid but often very well-informed columns by ‘Carla Roberts’ in the Weekly Worker[58]. She dishes out (often faint) praise and undertakes numerous political character-assassinations every week. Infuriating, grossly sectarian but at the same time wickedly humorous.

 

As a collective, we are committed to the printed word, so also recommend Oliver Eagleton’s introduction to ‘Your Party: The Return of the Left’ (p.1-15). The book includes interviews with key protagonists: though Corbyn declined. Clearly, the even-handed approach upset him even though his representative on earth Alex Nunns is included[59]. Thus despite publishers Verso being promised a book-stall, on arrival at Conference they were turned away. Typical TM behaviour[60]. Also worth mention is the magazine one of us does book reviews/writes occasionally for. This is Left Briefing, formerly Labour Briefing, edited by the redoubtable Christine Shawcroft. In its day the flag-ship of the Bennite Left, it today soldiers on, printing a wide variety of Leftist/Republican/Union commentary. They have to date published two articles by YP TM supporter Steve Price, the latest sneeringly referring to “Zarah’s fanboys and girls”[61].  These counterbalanced by a thoughtful Peter Lush review of Eagleton’s book above, with an unintentionally ironic complaint that “it is frustrating that it does not cover their inaugural conference”[62]—the one Verso were banned from!

Below we mainly concentrate on Left media with larger audiences than those above, though not necessarily, as we shall see, a better understanding.

Deficiencies in much Left coverage were highlighted by indefatigable Substack author and (now unfortunately former) Cambridge YP member Inacio Vieira. His piece was both profound and devastating, and although focussed on the Founding Conference, has a relevance far beyond. As he put it “outlets like Owen Jones’ show, Novara Media, and Turn Left Media gave minimal time to following how the founding documents were drafted, amended, and fought over. The regional assemblies, the proto-branches founded by unfunded volunteers on the ground, the community organising that is supposedly the core of left-wing politics—all largely ignored by the London-centric channels. Instead, most coverage simply reheated the personality-driven headlines that corporate media were also running”[63]. Vieira deftly analyses their coverage of that Conference, so no need for repetition.

 

 

THE NEW STATESMAN

Given their support for the Iraq War, employing super-injunction hypocrite[64]/all-round dullard Andrew Marr, and sycophancy towards the Starmer government, there is a strong case for saying the New Statesman isn’t really ‘Left’ media. But given it often postures as left, and gives space to the likes of Corbyn, Zack Polanski and occasionally Oliver Eagleton, they are seen by many as on the Left. The publication has certainly taken a keen interest in YP, especially Megan Kenyon.

 

She has written a number of articles on YP, often taking a slightly different view of the same events, in doing so multiplying basic errors of fact and interpretation. One, ‘Inside the Battle To Lead Your Party’ (3/12/25) says this: While members of the SWP had their membership of YP “revoked…Your Party officials…said that the expulsions were not targeted against any particular groups. The SWP didn’t seem to accept this: to them, this was personal”65]. Trump-level stupidity: clearly targeted against the SWP, and patently political, not just ‘personal’. Just where did the New Statesman get this person from: and do they have a DEI policy forcing them to hire Afghan Hound sub-editors? No cat would let such illogical idiocy through.

Kenyon affected to find amusing former union boss/Hotel Developer Len McCluskey calling interrupters at Corbyn’s soiree saboteurs/MI5 funny. We don’t, but mention of McCluskey called to mind the Birmingham Unite Hotel saga: when Sharon Graham took over as Unite General Secretary as far back as 2021 she found what looked like a massive overspend to the tune of £30 million pounds, and significant sums of money seemingly unaccounted for[66].  The Serious Fraud Office became involved in October 2024, but since then: very little. Though there was, now we think of it, a flurry of media articles late July 2025[67].  These covered publication of an impressive Report into the whole episode commissioned by Graham[68]. McCluskey, as you would expect from such a pillar of the union community, has always denied any wrongdoing concerning awarding the contract to his friends Flanagan’s the builders or any hospitality that may (or may not) have come his way in terms of chartered flights/tickets to watch Merseyside’s second team Liverpool FC. Who are we to doubt his word? We are sure, at an appropriate time, that august body the Serious Fraud Office (nothing to do with MI5 obviously) when having weighed up all the evidence will surely  exonerate him of any wrongdoing. Having such an unpleasant matter clouding your retirement must be stressful for him and partner Karie Murphy, especially given the near contemporaneous commotion regarding the formation of YP/the OG fall-out. We of course empathise: and surely poetry must have helped. Bless!

To be fair, the 3/12/25 article does provide some explanation about why Zarah boycotted the Conference’s first day: absent from the next piece. Though Kenyon’s 3/12 outline potted history of YP’s formation predictably conformed almost word for word with the Pogrund/Murphy view of events, as too her explanation of the membership portal launch: apparently Zarah “had again made a key decision without informing her colleagues in the nascent party”, and of course the usual un-named source (Murphy?) defended Murphy against being “scapegoated for everything”. Incredibly, Kenyon went on to claim neither Corbyn or Murphy had ever been in favour of “legalistic measures”. If you believe that, we’ve got twenty-four crates of Romulan Ale to sell at preferential rates: payment straight away followed by collection from the home-planet brewery. Befitting Kenyon’s status as a sewage outlet for TM spin, she ‘revealed’ “according to sources, Murphy plans to leave the project in the new year, once the party’s central executive committee is in place”. Sadly not….

Kenyon’s next article ‘Can Your Party be a serious contender or is it doomed to endless petty squabbling’ (print edition 12/12/25) retrospectively covered the YP Founding Conference 29/11/25. It is a masterpiece of evasion and spin that New Statesman readers lacking independent sources of information might have mistaken for an honest factual assessment. It wasn’t. Worth looking at in detail though as an exemplar of just how poor, and dishonest, much YP coverage has been:

1. She starts off talking of “briefings, counter-briefings, threats of legal action and unauthorised membership launches”. Not telling readers it is the Murphy faction who leaked to the media, not Zarah Sultana (ZS) and her supporters. Of course Kenyon would not mention this, as a frequent recipient of such leaks herself. Equally it was Corbyn’s faction who absurdly threatened legal action in the first place, not ZS. Hers was a defensive response, theirs offensive. Like the difference between US/Israel/UK and Iran…And Kenyon conveniently omits that the membership portal was set up by YP officially but then left in limbo while Murphy and friends consulted their spirit-guides.
2. “Sultana even boycotted the first day of the organisation’s inaugural conference”—without context (present in the previous article), this just looks like petulance, but she actually did so in solidarity with those outrageously excluded from the conference including key aide James Giles on spurious grounds.
3. Kenyon claimed ZS aspiration to be YP Parliamentary spokesperson was “at odds with YP’s current leadership structure”. It wasn’t, just not mentioned, entirely different. Now in 2026 Corbyn has been designated such, no squeak from Kenyon.
4. Next, Kenyon set up an entirely false antithesis, between YP building “a left-wing alliance with a broad, mass appeal, or does it want to focus on playing to its activist base”. False, because all opposing the outrageous and undemocratic actions of the TM clique were and are desperate for official local branches to be set up, not just patchy unofficial proto-branches. Setting up official branches has despicably still, five months later, not happened, entirely the result of Corbyn’s clique refusing to release the data and funds. Kenyon not mentioning this fact underscores her dishonesty.
5. Then, Kenyon introduces a snide phrase new to us–“Zaristas”, clearly intended to obscure issues by personalising politics. She writes the DSYP (Democratic Socialists of Your Party) are in the (Zarista) Sultana Faction, plus the SWP “and other members of the Socialist Unity Platform”. Kenyon does not mention the largest group who are (or were at the time she wrote: the SUP is now in abeyance) in that Platform: The Democratic Bloc (which one of us is a member of). For naming the Democratic Bloc in her article would not only show the YP struggle isn’t primarily (or even secondarily) about personalities, but beg the question, who in YP opposes democracy. Which is the Corbyn/Murphy faction, who spoon-fed Kenyon this article so yet again get off scot-free.
6. She offers a few (unusually fair) morsels about DSYP policy, before an outrageous lie–“expulsion of members of the SWP shortly before the conference started due to the still-active rule that Your Party members could not hold joint membership of another political group”. A lie because the SWP member (Lewis Nielsen) was expelled before the constitutional provision prohibiting dual membership had even been discussed! The ‘still active rule’ she refers to was invented, with no democratic mandate, by the TM clique. The same clique who got security goons to manhandle out of the hall an attendee who merely wanted to raise a point of order and prevented 499 of 500 submitted amendments to the Founding Documents even being discussed.
7. Kenyon compounded her lie by stating “Sultana and others accused Your Party officials of conducting a ‘purge’ or a ‘witch hunt (an accusation they have denied)’”. Not just an accusation, but a palpable proven fact, and denial does not make it untrue. But the vast majority of New Statesman readers would not know that.

8. Having coined (or at the very least given credence to) a ridiculous phrase, Zaristas, Kenyon goes on to quote Shanly (again) as if he/the DSYP were/are the only serious internal YP opposition, accusing Zaristas (by this stage in the article implicitly only the DYSP) of “pursuing a minoritarian form of left-wing politics while enforcing ideological purity, and are therefore more interested in appealing to engaged activists than potential voters”. Now, this caricatures their politics, but more pertinently other far left groups/figures around rather longer than the DSYP have a definitely more sophisticated position. Worth a slight digression: see next point.
9. Aside from James Giles whose expulsion from Conference Kenyon did not mention in this second article, Councillor Michael Lavalette, of far-left group Counterfire, was initially excluded. In a widely distributed free sheet available at Conference, veteran Counterfire (and former SWP) member John Rees wrote this, worth quoting at length (not least because we agree)—“Revolutionaries need to understand that this project is not simply a reconfiguration of the far left. It is not revolutionary regroupment, and many of the 800,000 that initially showed interest in Your Party are not Marxists, or revolutionaries of any description. They are radicals, they have a strong attachment to extra-parliamentary struggle as well as winning elections, but they are not convinced of revolutionary Marxism and, in the immediacy, they aren’t going to accept either Marxist theory in its totality or all the tactical and strategic goals that flow from it. There is indeed a huge interest in Marxist ideas, and a willingness to listen to the tactical arguments of revolutionaries, but not if they are delivered as ultimatums or as programmatic requirements” Rees concludes by calling for “careful thought and a less-is-more approach. A clear simple set of demands that can be put before the electorate. A democratic structure and a wide, but clear and principled programme”. A nuanced subtle take on YP: indeed, Rees has previous for doing exactly what he argues for. As recounted in Andrew Murray’s 2022 book ‘Is Socialism Possible in Britain?’ Jeremy Corbyn’s initial 2015 Labour Leadership campaign economic pitch was urgently drafted by Murray and John Rees/Lindsey German (Stop the War/Counterfire) on a pub napkin during a walking holiday (p.44). Alerting New Statesman readers to the Democratic Bloc or such a sophisticated Counterfire argument did not suit Kenyon’s grubby purpose so were ignored. Sadly, Counterfire have now walked away from YP[69].

10. Kenyon does not name the TM clique sources writing her script, quoting the usual anonymous informant as saying about votes on the founding documents that “the results demonstrate the mass politics wing is where the membership is at”—by default (as evidently not Zaristas) meaning the TM faction. Enthusiastically (as a trainee witch-hunter) Kenyon excitedly tells us “there is a chance that the SWP members could remain barred”. Why would this interest a serious political journalist? Rhetorical question…
11. Unsurprisingly, she cited a 92% vote for the political statement as “a strong signal, one insider said, of member’s desire for Your Party to become a ‘mass socialist’ movement as opposed to an ‘umbrella’ for ‘ultra-left groups”. Red-baiting aside, the idea that the TM clique, who would never have launched the party until Zarah Sultana did, nor had any members until she opened the portal (which they then sabotaged) and have even now refused to allow official branches—the idea they want a ‘mass party’ is preposterous, proven false by their actions, up to and including the present day.
12. Which means Kenyon’s final antithesis—being “caught between building a mass movement able to take on the Greens and damage Labour from the Left, and maintaining a smaller more radical force based on ideological unity”—is as bogus as her pretence at being a good faith journalist. Fact is, those who want a mass empowered party oppose the Murphy/Corbyn clique, and even the DSYP are a part (albeit not the most significant even in terms of numbers, and less so after the CEC Elections and Max Shanly’s defenestration) of that opposition. Like a stopped clock is right at least once a day, the same can be said of Kenyon, who stated January’s Central Executive Committee Elections would be “a battle for the heart of Your Party itself”. She got that right. But not much else. Which has not prevented her getting further information from the TM clique as we shall see.

 

 

THE CHAMELEON: OWEN JONES

 Owen Jones, like it or not, is a very influential Left media figure, his You-Tube show has a staggering 835,000 subscribers. The first question to ask though, is should his opinion on YP be valued? As a political commentator/strategist, the answer is clearly no. In March 2017, months before the election which Corbyn’s Labour very nearly won, and increased their vote massively, he offered this advice to Corbyn, that “if Corbyn decides he is unable to confront the multiple existential crises enveloping Labour, then an agreement should be struck where he can stand down in exchange for the guarantee of an MP from the new generation on the ballot paper who is committed to the policies that inspired Corbyn’s supporters in the first place”[70]. Then there are the two key issues that arose during Corbyn’s time as Labour Leader: alleged antisemitism in Labour and Brexit. On both Jones was spectacularly wrong: ceding ground on antisemitism allegations/Zionism on the one, and on the other adopting at least five different views on Brexit. So at least four must have been wrong: an 80% fail rate hovering around Tottenham Hotspur’s win % this season! Here is not the place to repeat detail: see our review of his book ‘This Land’[71].   After Corbyn departed, Jones showed (putting it mildly) a pitiful inability to understand what Starmer stood for: “Starmer can succeed, and anyone with progressive sympathies should actively will his leadership to do so. His democratic mandate is rooted in a policy prospectus which, before 2015, would have been deemed unthinkably radical by mainstream Labour…As it was under Attlee, Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson, the left is a legitimate power within the party again, one which cannot be ignored….the left should wish him well; the quid pro quo is Starmer stands by his promises. Now is the time for critical friendship, to wish a genuinely decent and progressive politician well”[72].  Had Jones been as clever as he imagines, he would have noticed even early Starmer was anything but decent and progressive. Oliver Eagleton’s excellent book ‘The Starmer Project’ outlines how Starmer as Director of Public Prosecutions among other things (such as avoiding prosecuting Jimmy Savile & Greville Janner) colluded with the US Department of Justice to prevent rape charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange being investigated, as he wanted him here in the UK to facilitate extradition to the USA[73]. The Assange case gives a good insight into the Jones method: when allegations of rape against him were first raised, Jones uncritically jumped onto the bandwagon and joined the clamour for Assange to be extradited[74]. As one of us has explored in great detail[75], not only  were those charges highly implausible, the Guardian and especially their ‘star’ journalist Nick Davies danced a perfect jig to the US tune, deliberately with-holding evidence available in the public domain so as to reduce sympathy for Assange. Subsequently, the Guardian, and Jones, changed their tune, becoming (hypocritical) opponents of extradition: chronicled here[76].

 

There was also Starmer’s sabotaging a possible Brexit deal with the Tories in 2019[77] and being the key player pushing Corbyn to support a second Brexit referendum. Definite strategic sense behind this: Eagleton reports a shadow Cabinet member telling him Starmer’s “plan was, I’ll push for a People’s Vote and head into a General Election with that policy. If we win the election, we’ll have a second referendum. If we win that, I’ll be the most popular politician in the country and in a position to challenge Jeremy. If we don’t win it, Jeremy will be a wounded beast and I’ll trample on his corpse”[78]. Which Starmer later did, after spitting on and kicking it. Then there is campaign funding: during the Leadership election, Left opponent Rebecca Long-Bailey listed all donations above £1,500, challenging Starmer to do so too. He did not of course, and when directly asked on Sky News during the campaign, dismissed the issue as “outsiders stirring”[79]. No wonder Starmer evaded such questions, given his chief donor was Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn, to the tune of £50,000, information only revealed after the contest had ended[80]. This should not have come as a shock to Jones, someone with his ear close to the ground in Labour circles then if not as much now. For in February 2020 Starmer told the Jewish News he was a “Zionist without qualification”[81].  Even by July 2020, the penny still hadn’t dropped for Jones–“For those within the party, from Momentum to the soft left Open Labour, a coalition should be built to hold the leadership to the policy commitments Starmer made in his election: that is, after all, his mandate”[82].

Nothing above makes Jones’ opinions worthless: after all he does recognise there is genocide in Gaza, and his landmark article covering the ‘BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza’ was superb—so good internal BBC Gatekeeper/Mossad asset Raffi Berg has tried to sue him for it, so far without success[83]. Nonetheless his previous prodigious intellectual somersaults reveal Jones to be not so much opinion-former, as a follower of trends, seeking to go with that week’s  flow. Shown by his political dalliances: first a Corbynista, then urging him to resign, next a believer in Starmer’s good faith, a 2024 Green Party voter, subsequently a YP fan, and currently (at time of writing) Green supporter. Jones is driven by the need to write frequent columns, and following Groucho Marx, the method seems to be ‘these are my opinions: if you don’t like them, I have others’. His essential shallowness beautifully illustrated when Jones asked Zarah Sultana what she meant by nationalising the economy. Her forthright and uncompromising answer floored him: you can see that from his eyes rolling, spluttering, and wittering about kiosks[84].

 

 

Looked at historically, Owen Jones is the political heir of 17^th Century politician the First Marquess of Halifax (1633-95). He navigated the complex politics of Restoration England (after Cromwell) right up to and including the 1688 Glorious Revolution, with consummate ease, switching positions constantly. Opponents pejoratively termed him a ‘Trimmer’ a label he promptly adopted. Halifax occupied numerous governmental positions, off and on, and before being drummed out of office ended up as First Minister of State (i.e. PM). Halifax’s stated aim was steadying the ship of state, striking a balance between extremes of politics and religion, though in the end his constant flip-flopping alienated everybody, uniting all opponents accumulated over the years. They thought his frequent policy reversals hypocritical and opportunistic. Exact comparison with Jones is not on obviously: whereas Halifax was a thinker of distinction[85], not sure Jones deserves that accolade.  Is Jones a beacon of moderation and clear thinking, a consistent guide in these troubled times, or an unprincipled opportunist changing allegiance as often as some update i-phones? Make up your own mind. We have…

Aside from Jones’ incomprehension when faced with Zarah’s radicalism, and his excision of DSYP views chronicled by Vieira, Jones has written little on YP. Never one to miss a sound-byte though, on 25/7/25 he announced his joining YP, mentioning the “brilliant MP Zarah Sultana”[86]. A few months later, by Founding Conference, he had jumped ship. Given their history, Jones wrote about that event (1/12/25) with an unsurprising pro-Corbyn slant—”Sultana unilaterally announced first the party’s launch, without the agreement of Corbyn, then a portal for people to sign up as members. This was disavowed by her Your Party colleagues, but not before hundreds of thousands of pounds was raised, leading to mutual legal threats. Only some of this has been transferred to Your Party, with Sultana promising to transfer the rest as long as the liabilities of the company that holds the money are settled. Corbyn tells me, “We were worried that we’d be able to even pay for the conference two weeks ago”[87]. He criticises Sultana for boycotting the first day over banning of members, then disses the SWP for their internal processes/2013 covering up for a rape apologist. All true, but he does not, note, criticise the expulsions/barring of other delegates, and since when do undemocratic SWP practices justify others following suit? And while we all have opinions on Max Shanly, extremely dishonest of Jones to dismiss attempts to democratise YP as possibly creating “a battleground dominated by revolutionary sects thanks to their organisational capacity, stamina and obsessive behaviour”[88]. This shallow personalisation/binary framing mimics MSM coverage: and leaves out, intentionally, groups like the Democratic Bloc/Platform for A Democratic Party. But then, working for the Guardian, Jones is part of the problem, not the solution. In an exchange with us on X (17/2/26) Jones stated, “Your Party’s political culture is so hideous anyone vaguely normal will run a mile”. Very helpful: not. However, given Jones’ unerring talent for getting political trajectories spectacularly wrong, we draw comfort from his dismissing YP: until that is, he flips again, and/or realises the recent Green Party Conference rejected nationalising water companies, rather denting any ‘socialist’ image.

 

 

NOVARA MEDIA

Eclipsing Owen Jones, Novara Media has 1.23 million subscribers, its influence unquestioned. With an added twist, Vieira’s characterisation above of Novara’s approach still holds true: at best, scraping the surface. Their Founding Conference video, aired 3/12/25, was quite good in parts however[89]. Presenter Richard Hames did short vox pop interviews with ordinary members and longer segments with Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey. To his credit he also spoke to two SWP members expelled from Conference: Lewis Nielsen and Samira Ali (of Stand Up To Racism) and then filmed the Head of Security revealing the person ordering both expulsions was a Scots woman called Karie, who Hames playfully pretended not to know the full name of. Neat. And he got a true Henry II/Thomas a Becket moment from Corbyn, who claimed with a straight face to know nothing about Ali’s ejection. Hames usefully showed Sultana laying into the faceless unaccountable bureaucrats too. That said, this film had limits: no critique or even displayed understanding of Assemblies/Sortition/Proto-branches/the disgraceful way Conference was chaired and so on. He also either lacked the confidence, or the knowledge, to push back against BS from Karie Murphy’s partner Len McCluskey, who sought to justify a ban on dual membership. It would be wonderful to see McCluskey (or even better Corbyn himself) explain just what has changed since the July 1982 Labour Briefing article ‘Defeat the witch-hunt’ stating “we are setting up a defence campaign…to support the Militant comrades in this struggle, and will be glad to conduct this campaign under the guidance of the Militant comrades themselves”. The ‘Provisional Convenor’ of this body? One Jeremy Corbyn. Just as people have a life-long ambition to live to the end of a DFS furniture sale, we would like to hear or see just one journalist, ever, get Corbyn to explain, without evasion, what has changed. It certainly hasn’t been a growth in Trotskyism, that’s for sure….

 

The added twist to Novara’s coverage is provided by Ash Sarkar, Senior Editor at Novara, and an academic/BBC Moral Maze contributor. Worth noting at the outset that, in contrast to Jones, Sarkar has always been critical of Starmer and an anti-Zionist. Her take on YP seems to have been negative from the start, but for fluctuating reasons. In Novara’s end of 2025 review[90] she criticised YP members for wanting two contradictory things: on the one hand, mass membership, but on the other “a high level of alignment, on issues which are totally legitimate but either have low levels of salience or low levels of support out in society”—the two she picked were leaving NATO and self-identification for trans people. While accepting Zarah Sultana had indeed been frozen out of running YP (no shit Sherlock!) it is Sultana who Sarkar concentrated fire on, including her criticism of ‘social conservatives’ in YP. The question arises: how does Sarkar think minds are actually changed, and issues with low levels of support/salience become mainstream? Would not in the past slavery, or votes for women, been described thus? On trans issues, has not Zohran Mamdani embraced this ‘low salience’ (except to those involved) issue and run with it? Sarkar shows here she is fundamentally just a member of the commentariat, not conversant with actual grassroots politics. An impression confirmed by her bizarre claim political issues such as dual membership/collective leadership have been reframed as questions of moral purity. No evidence given, though recasting political questions this way avoids analysing them. Sarkar does distinguish between Zarah launching the party unilaterally: good, and the membership portal: bad. That said, in a further dig at Sultana, she decries her strident opposition to NATO as ‘maximalist’ and clearly disagrees, not just with that but Zarah criticising Corbynism for not ‘holding the line enough’. Her line is Zarah was just seeking points of differentiation from the Greens regarding NATO membership, presumably for political advantage not principle. Maybe, maybe not.  Sarkar saying this about NATO reminded us Ben Timberley has raised serious questions about Novara Media, and whether they are part of what he terms the CIA-backed Plan C[91]. A matter we will return to: but not now! 

 

In any event, the Zarah Sultana threat having (for now) been vanquished, by 9/3/26 Unsilent Witness Dr Sarkar pronounced YP “dead” due to the fact leading protagonists Sultana and Corbyn were previously in the Labour Party, as of course was she, even if only briefly between late 2019 and 2021. As true in December as now, yet in December she attributed YP failure to something else: maximalist demands. Yet another sideways dig at Zarah? While again accepting Sultana had been excluded from running YP, the issue now was her “unilateral moves” (now plural note so the party launch is now presumably bad too, when it wasn’t earlier) by “not waiting for the membership to come into play absolutely blew up whatever trust that there could be”[92]. Poppycock. It surely cannot mean active members, who largely support Zarah’s campaign to democratise YP, which is precisely why they are being sidelined/purged. While it could mean the trust of inactive members, far more logical to think Sarkar means the TM clique, who come in for no specific criticism at all from Sarkar, unlike Sultana. The conclusion has to be Sarkar is quite happy to burn bridges with Zarah, and strafe any survivors with metaphorical machine-gun fire, but not so with Corbyn’s clique. The New Statesman after all described her as a “ventriloquist of Corbynism”, and there is surely room for one more attendee at future Progress International/Diem 25! junkets.

On 26/3 Dr Sarkar again pronounced on YP’s cause of death. Apparently, it was “devoid of strategy, a lack of tactics and emotional intelligence”. If Sarkar means socialist strategy, correct, but believe us, there is a strategy. The TM clique have rebuffed socialists, but happily align themselves with politically amorphous ‘Independent’ groups possessing highly questionable politics, and will portray victories by such groups in places like Newham and Tower Hamlets as YP victories.  She again absolves Corbyn of complicity, stating he has a “tendency to just Homer Simpson backwards into the hedge in moments of conflict”. That is too kind by far: for example his turning up late with 30 minutes to go at the 12/4 CEC Meeting rubber-stamping the witch-hunt wasn’t avoidance, just wanting to arrive after the deed was done, one he is fully on board with. And yet again, Zarah comes in for more stick, her views on nationalisation/NATO dismissed as “lurching from tactic to tactic”. The clear inference is Zarah articulating her ideas has “modelled a really negative political culture”. In an attempt to dignify this twaddle with a superficial gravitas, Sarkar talks up “sedimentary networks….people who’ve met through doing Your Party who will be able to do useful political work” which she affects to find “exciting and always possible”[93]. The content of course unspecified. Here we see what Sarkar has in common with Jones: a tendency to think and speak in shifting and contradictory glib sound-bytes, without any serious notion of constructive political strategy. For example, why not mention proto-branches as the basis of sedimentary networks? That would not do as Homer Corbyn wouldn’t like that one little bit. Best poke gentle fun at the old duffer, while giving the politically prone Zarah Sultana a few more kicks. Pseudo-intellectual commentariat frauds like Sarkar make us puke, frankly.

 

 

Whatever her undoubted good points (not that we’ve found any), Sarkar’s fawning and totally uncritical interview with serial grifter Roger Hallam in November 2025 is an a disgrace, raising more serious questions about her political judgement[94]. She did not, for instance, ask him about allegations of a rape culture within JSO or question his dodgy politics generally, explored on this web-site a number of times previously, and even displayed in his book on Your Party[95]. Hallam no doubt couldn’t believe his luck: the Guardian, New Statesman and now Novara have all allowed him to rebrand, and set up yet another lure for the unsuspecting, this time ‘Take Back Power’ people have never had in the first place. Despite repeated opportunities presented to him, Hallam has never engaged with our critiques, but we suspect has learnt from them. Thus, ‘Take Back Power’ has a hastily-applied patina of ‘Left’ rhetoric not present before.  Doubters as to his sincerity can be allayed by such uncritical coverage as Novara Media offered: thanks for nothing, Ash. A final point for political sage Sarkar to ponder while munching her luxury kebab: if YP, which had 9,000 people vote at the Conference either hybrid or on-line, and over 23,000 vote in CEC elections, is “dead” what about the Green Party? With a nominal membership of 220,000 how come only 900 voted in their (on-line) Policy Conference 28/3/26? What does that make the Greens using her logic: cremated?

Thankfully, Sarkar is not the only Novara commentator on YP. For Rivkah Brown’s 10/2 piece, unlike Sarkar, she actually spoke to different trends within YP, and aims swipes at both sides, as shown here—”More than one person who previously worked for Corbyn cited Alvarez’s outsize role as evidence of the “monarchical” and “royal family vibe” surrounding the ex-Labour leader. Meanwhile, Sultana’s husband Craig Lloyd, who previously worked for the Fire Brigades Union, reportedly told Sultana he wanted to make her “queen of the left” (he denies this)”.

Some of what Brown says is spot on, and this is a serious piece, her stab at what GL and TM stand for passable, something Megan Kenyon could learn from if she ever takes up journalism: “At the heart of Your Party are two radically different notions of what the party is for, broadly represented by its two co-founders…. The desire of the Corbyn faction – in particular Murphy – is for a disciplined party with a strong, name-brand leader dead-set on winning elections. Corbyn, they believe, is the only person who can unite the nation around a socialist party….Those clustered around Sultana….believe that a party run along the Corbyn faction’s lines – hierarchical, tightly controlled, election-oriented – risks becoming Labour 2.0, complete with the same stifling bureaucracy and disciplinary instincts. They argue that some of these tendencies have already been evinced in the Corbyn faction’s shopping of Sultana to the Information Commissioner’s Office; its withholding of money and data from proto-branches (Corbyn’s faction would argue her faction withheld the money for conference, which they deny); and its expulsion of party activists over their membership of other leftwing groups. Before winning elections, the Sultana faction’s priority is a democratic party structure, one that empowers members and inoculates against the kind of takeover McSweeney staged of Labour”.

She also references the fact “Your Party now claims over 55,000 members (a figure Novara Media couldn’t verify, since the party wouldn’t provide evidence of it). If that figure is accurate, it would make Your Party the largest socialist party in Britain since the Communists in 1942”.

There are though, important lacunae and mis-steps. For instance “While the egos at the top of the party have been swashbuckling, thousands of members in over 180 proto-branches have been organising, undeterred by the playground politics of the rival cliques”. Actually, to the best of our knowledge, most activists in proto-branches are definitely anti-TM, who want to smash proto-branches.  After all Point 1 in their programme states in full red-baiting mode: “the Grassroots Left slate is promising — they have committed to …immediately recognise existing proto-branches on day one. We think this is wrong. While many proto-branches have been doing great work in their communities, not all members have been able to take part in them. Many are run by the Socialist Workers Party and other sectarian groups which comprise the Grassroots Left slate. These groups are more organised than ordinary individual members, who are effectively excluded from equal participation. They are seeking to exert control of the party through control of the branches”[96].  She also refers to “accusations of anti-democratic wrangling, financial skulduggery and childish media stunts”. But can’t be bothered setting the record straight. Even though elsewhere in the article Brown concedes “Despite being denied data and funding by the leadership, proto-branches have joined bus drivers, refuse workers, doctors and teachers on picket lines; launched local campaigns for better bus services and disability funding; and co-organised counter-demonstrations when the far right has come to town”. Might we remind her TM control the leadership and have since Day One?

Then there is Brown mischaracterising both GL and TM platforms—”While Grassroots Left has a long but thin policy platform[97] focused unglamorously on party structures – student sections, independent financial audits, a “democracy commission” – The Many has stuck to bland pronouncements about the importance of unity and a smattering of policies suspiciously similar to those of Corbyn’s Labour”. There could perhaps be more detail in the GL programme, and it is one we have reservations about, but “thin” is unfair. Has she read it? As for TM, given their vicious red-baiting above, bland it is not.

Furthermore, a bit grating Brown cites as an authority on YP, three times, Mish Rahman, ex-member and recent defector to the Greens, now obviously with an axe to grind. Apparently “he doubts the differences between the two camps are as substantive as they’re made out: “[Sultana and Corbyn] are not far off each other [politically], it’s just a proxy war for control…the narcissism of small differences.” When he gave a rousing speech at Zarah’s pre-Conference rally, Rahman did not seem to think so. Was this Damascene revelation precipitated by something so crude as national opinion polls? Perish the thought. Apparently, “For his part, Rahman believes “collective leadership will not work”, adding that the utopian concept had been “mis sold” to members. “How will a serious political party be able to take to the public something without a single leader?”. As a new member perhaps he missed the fact Polanski stood against two rivals who, er, wanted to be Co-Leaders, a long-standing Green tradition. Is Rahman implying Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns were not serious? That won’t help his selection as a parliamentary candidate, will it?

Brown somehow avoided speaking to the largest YP group (Democratic Bloc that Rahman was key to before bailing out) and also Platform for a Democratic Party. The reason is simple: doing so would undermine a narrative the situation is just GL vs TM. Telling therefore, that the article’s first version mis-labelled Shanice McBean (Organising 4 Popular Power) as being in GL.

 

 

Brown recycles copious pro-Green propaganda, rendered humorously defunct given only 900 out of 220,000 members could be bothered even to attend their recent Policy Conference remotely. Such dysfunctional Conferences the long-standing and astute Green Left group[98] (not to be confused with the James Schneider-backed Greens Organise) have criticised before. Maybe they will now be listened to? Propaganda like this now seems wryly amusing–“Where could one possibly find a democratic party that doesn’t publicly air its dirty laundry? Zack Polanski raises a quiet hand….Meanwhile the Green party, according to party member and chronicler Adam Ramsay, is on a journey to convert Polanski’s fans into activists (though with the party’s Gorton and Denton office as packed as a late-night kebab shop on my colleague Aaron Bastani’s recent visit, the Greens appears to be making headway on this front)”. Headway on the kebab front perhaps: to fortify for a very long journey—participants in the Green Conference were out-numbered by a factor of at least 35 compared to the YP Conference. Now, we would not want to minimise problems inside YP—this article doesn’t—but the overall dismissive tone is not on, when you put actual participation in perspective. Which makes the cod humour in this piece starts ring hollow: “Back in the autumn, it felt like Your Party needed a mediator. Now, it feels like it needs a defibrillator”[99]. As one of us is a former paramedic, the other a nurse, might we point out that, actually, if used early enough defibrillators work…So, while a marked improvement on Sarkar’s intellectual candy floss, Brown’s treatment is not as on-point as it might appear on first reading. And let’s face it, most people won’t read it twice.

 

 

MORNING STAR

Having long since cast aside its Communist Party past as the Daily Worker, this publication is important especially in union circles, stretching far beyond its probably small (figures elusive) circulation. It has tried to act as an honest broker regarding YP: in the free copy handed to delegates at the Founding Conference both Corbyn and Sultana were interviewed. The paper has also run opinion pieces by the likes of Mark Serwotka regarding YP. Columnist Andrew Murray, Communist/former Corbyn adviser has been their most frequent and important commentator. Fair to say he is a critical friend, as shown by his Summer 2025 New Left Review interview[100]. Given past association with Corbyn, not least via ‘Stop The War’, no surprise Murray sympathises with Corbyn’s viewpoint to an extent. That said he does not pull punches regarding Sultana’s treatment by colleagues, including Corbyn. His attempts at balance can be seen in this article concerning internal conflict at the time YP was launched. On the one hand “relations began to deteriorate after the committee established to launch the new party voted, by a large majority, for Sultana and Corbyn to be co-leaders, a decision Sultana controversially and unilaterally announced immediately”. While this could be seen as personalising politics, and the ‘unilateral launch’ charge is misguided, it’s an opinion he is entitled to. Murray certainly provides balance going on to say:  “Corbyn did not want to be co-leader and did not accept the vote. Having had leadership famously thrust on him once, he did not want co-leadership thrust on him anew…encouraged by advisers who believed in his exclusive right to lead, he successfully insisted on the winding up of the committee as punishment for its temerity”. Also this: “oversight of the new party’s launch was vested in the Independent Alliance of MPs — Corbyn, Sultana, and the four Muslim men elected on a pro-Gaza ticket last year. By any reckoning, it is an inadequate basis for promoting a new party of the left. The four MPs have little or no political experience or history of engagement in socialist politics. Sultana, moreover, found it a cold place to work. The other MPs reliably backed Corbyn on all issues, having worked collaboratively with him since their Commons debuts. They resisted all suggestions of broadening out the group controlling the party’s launch conference, and issued emails to Your Party’s burgeoning list of supporters without Sultana’s agreement. The emails themselves were innocuous, and the proposals for advancing the new party broadly as good as they could be under the circumstances. But there is little doubt that Corbyn’s entourage — by no means as pacific as the man himself — were bent on isolating Sultana and reducing her role in what they believed was Corbyn’s party by right. With IA approval, they took full control over preparation for the party’s launch, elbowing aside those they did not trust”[101]. Murray’s emollient attitude probably explains why he was chosen to interview Sultana on the eve of Founding Conference.  The paper as a whole was broadly supportive of YP, the editorial stating “Not everyone will agree on Your Party as the best vehicle for putting the left back on the map. But its emergence on the political scene is welcome, and all socialists should wish its founding conference every success”[102]. Given the Morning Star see themselves as bringers of unity, and do not want coverage to be overly controversial, it must have taken courage for Murray to criticise Corbyn and his entourage, for which he is to be commended. Before you all rush out and subscribe to the Morning Star (though you could do worse) consider this. In the Corbyn interview by editor Ben Chacko for the Conference edition, the vast bulk is in quotation marks. One important passage is not however—“Your Party’s provisional leadership could not legally hand over data to self-declared branches, or verify that these even represented paid-up members. Some also applied their own criteria on who to include and exclude, obstacles to a representative delegate-based conference”[103]. This seems to indicate the Morning Star’s editor at least has fallen for the BS TM are putting about to explain why they have not set up proper branches. Very disappointing.

Before the CEC Elections the Morning Star published position statements by both Grassroots Left and The Many candidates[104]. While the GL article argued passionately for branches to be set up immediately, the TM contribution by Cassi Bellingham effectively argued against branches. No surprise to find she is the CEC member now tasked with setting them up. While it would have been nice to leave it there, we cannot avoid mentioning the Morning Star platforming (16/4/26) a truly disgraceful piece of AI slop by TM supporter Claudia Webbe, seeking to justify the CEC purging socialists by invoking legendary Marxists Antonio Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg, who both (as inveterate members of factions) would be expelled from Your Party today. This AI slop shows TM have no shame: and no solid theoretical foundation either[105].

 

THE CANARY SINGS

Only one outlet, The Canary (and allied Skwawkbox) has undertaken genuine unabashed investigative journalism: aside from Vieira. The Canary, you may recall, was a Corbyn-supporting outlet Morgan McSweeney was desperate to demonetize during Corbyn’s time as Labour leader, in which he was successful, as revealed graphically in Paul Holden’s exemplary book ‘The Fraud’[106]. Various Canary journalists have stood out in terms of YP coverage: crucially Steve Topple exposed the real story behind the MOU financial conflict between Zarah/the MOU and the TM clique: needless to say on 30/10/25, nearly two weeks before Badshah’s Guardian hatchet-job[107]. He definitively exposed TM clique lies about the funds held by MOU Ltd following Zarah’s launch of the YP membership portal. Using emails the veracity of which is unquestioned, Topple showed the TM/MSM narrative that the MOU and Zarah were withholding money from YP was false: MOU repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) tried to transfer all money, along with potential financial liabilities arising due to the TM clique referring Zara/MOU to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the first place[108]. Needless to say, facts not in Badshah’s Guardian article two weeks later. That’s not how client journalism works, is it Nadeem? There have also been useful pieces by antifabot and Ed Sykes. More recently, if largely beyond the scope of this article, Willem Moore has penned outstanding articles on YP selection processes/choices for the May 2026 local elections[109]. Nonetheless, beyond dispute that among her truly diverse and astoundingly prolific output, the most frequent Canary YP commentator by far has been Maddison Wheeldon[110]. Dumped as a Green candidate in Warrington for the 2024 General Election after the Regional Party caved following a Daily Telegraph smear story alleging her  antisemitic due to opposing genocide in Gaza, Wheeldon unsurprisingly left the Greens[111].

After starting with a YP/Transform meeting (2/10/25[112]), her second article (17/11/25), reported on a St Helen/s YP Assembly, already showing Wheeldon not afraid to speak the truth—”This event must be seen as a wake-up call for the executive to better support and empower grassroots organising if they want success, rather than depending on them entirely to deliver events and drum up local support alone…. It is also imperative for Your Party to appreciate those who have volunteered to help organise are risking their own reputations and the trust they hold in their communities, when they become the local ‘face’ of the movement. The anxiety and distrust that has grown over the last few weeks is having to be answered by grassroots members, who are equally none the wise, and often share the same concerns. Repairing this broken trust must be a priority for the executive Your Party team, focusing on improving transparency, humility and honesty at all levels, or it risks giving a bad name to all involved”[113]. Her next contribution (23/11/25) about a Wigan YP meeting (as you can see, she gets all the glamorous gigs) would have hardly impressed the TM clique—shortly after their 13/11/25 attack on Zarah she dared mention Sultana’s “usual energising spirit”[114].  Distaste no doubt turned to apoplexy when Wheeldon covered (29/11/25) Zarah’s eve of conference rally, stating  “What stood out from Zarah Sultana’s rally tonight is that she is unapologetic over her righteous anger at how the ‘bureaucrats’ in Your Party have not only smeared and briefed against her – but are now also turning against members and socialists before the conference has even begun. As she told the Canary, that’s no way to run things – and members should not tolerate it”[115]. She did not mention Corbyn’s contemporaneous and lesser attended rally (or was it a Kumbaya workshop/poetry reading?) the same night, so you could term this article sectarian. However look at context: Corbyn’s clique had outrageously expelled various people including SWP General Secretary Lewis Nielsen, and confined Zarah to what they hoped would be a Sunday afternoon ‘graveyard slot’ to speak.  In this situation, Wheeldon decided (as someone victimised herself) to cover the victimised, not the witch-hunters. The day Conference started, Wheeldon reported the ejection of another SWP member (also on Karie Murphy’s orders) and a (later overturned) ban on Councillor Michael Lavalette of Counterfire attending. The article headlined (quite rightly) ‘Your Party conference begins with security forcibly removing one member’[116]. If the TM clique didn’t like that headline, Murphy should not have ordered the ejection. Simple.

 

Given Wheeldon’s interest in supporting YP, and exemplary articles above, no surprise Zarah Sultana and her entourage thought her a (rare) journalist worth communicating with. All political parties and factions do it if they can: the key difference between Wheeldon’s coverage and that of the Guardian/BBC/Sky/Sunday Times etc is she does it attributably: whereas the likes of Murphy copy the Labour Right trick by speaking as ‘sources close to Jeremy Corbyn’. Something else entirely. For reference, Wheeldon doesn’t share our views on Corbyn, happily reporting a poll (5/1/26) claiming Corbyn would be a more popular Chancellor of the Exchequer than Rachel Reeves from Customer Services[117]. Though John Aislabie probably would be too, even now.

Wheeldon (14/12/25) interviewed close Sultana associate James Giles, another initially banned from attending Conference[118], and repeatedly does what YP Official Feed/emails never do: give Zarah Sultana a voice, such as over Starmer (8/1/26)[119]. On 9/1/26 Wheeldon covered the Information Commissioner’s Office dropping the case against Sultana for allegedly misusing YP funds. As she put it “After months of infighting, briefing, and confusion, the Your Party membership are desperate to move forward and build a socialist movement that can challenge Reform. The abandoned ICO case has provided clarity regarding Sultana’s actions, representing an opportunity for a clean slate for the executive to move forward”[120].  Laudable sentiments, but such was/is the TM clique’s hatred of Zarah they used habitual effluent pipe Megan Kenyon to trumpet on 9/1/26 “Zarah Sultana’s unauthorised launch of a Your Party membership portal should be referred to the police”[121],  followed by a Guardian article that same day (Alexandra Topping) giving the specious claim more publicity[122]. That it was specious has been confirmed both by Vieira’s near-contemporary Substack article[123] and a dog that didn’t bark—there has been no referral to police reported and one was never likely. The whole concocted story inadvertently provides a stark illustration of how the highly unequal mass media information war is being fought: while the TM clique have the New Statesman/Guardian and other MSM outlets, those wanting to set the record straight have nowhere near the same reach. The transmission belt starting with Murphy’s ‘Peace & Justice Project’, then Megan Kenyon and finally the Guardian/BBC/Sky, was laid bare on this occasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CEC ELECTIONS STORY

The outcome of the YP Central Executive Committee (CEC) Elections, with voting starting 10/2 & ending 26/2/26, was crucial for YP’s future, resulting in victory for the TM clique. To put MSM/Left media coverage of this in proper perspective, outlining key facts surrounding that election will enable a clear determination as to what MSM/Left media reportage either distorted or omitted entirely.

A key factor (probably the main one) in the ruling clique’s victory is persuading many more people to vote in the election (25,347) than voted (either in person or remotely) during the inaugural November 2025 Conference in Liverpool to ratify the Constitution, whether in person or online (9,000). Inasmuch as those voting to ratify were obviously committed active members to a degree, it follows the extra 16,000 or so election voters were either not members in November (unlikely due to YP’s downward trajectory) or not engaged, and thus very influenced by media coverage. While anybody with sense who reflected on the sectarian TM policy ‘proposals’ would be appalled, in this shallow internet (and leader-obsessed) age most people don’t do detail, just impressions.

 

Regarding Conference, despite the atrocious way it was run, barring/ejecting members, with a dictatorial chair, silencing speakers, refusing points of order and discussion on all 500 amendments bar one, there were defeats for the ruling clique: over dual membership/collective leadership for example. For a forensically detailed account of what went on (right up to and including the CEC Meeting 8/3/26), I recommend Socialist Alternative member Michael Barker’s ‘The Fight For Your Party’—it is he who writes the aforementioned Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist blog [124]. In any event the TM clique were determined not to suffer further defeats, hence desperate to ensure victory for ‘The Many’ (hereafter TM) in the election. Done in five ways:

• Excluding some independent candidates not under their control who might have won a seat: most notably Dave Nellist of the Socialist Party in the West Midlands.
• Using partisan control of the electoral process to squeeze out independent candidates by adopting a highly obscure form of Single Transferable Vote: the Imperiali system, designed to function as a First Past the Post election, to their disadvantage. Independent candidates got in total (averaged out) more regional endorsements enabling them to stand (40.3%/5,191) than either GL (32.4%/4,173) or TM slates (27.3%/3,511), this despite having to navigate a ridiculously high threshold in regions and the difficulty of non-slate candidates getting their pitches even seen by members. You will note (as they will have) TM’s slate got the least endorsements. As both independent candidates and the GL slate favoured democratic branch formation and recognising the existing 200 proto-branches, unlike TM, it would be reasonable to surmise that under a genuine STV system TM, with less influence among active members, would not have won a majority. Yet while the National Elected Representative Seats came out 2 GL/2 TM, TM ended up with 12 other seats, GL 7, and independents only 3. Inversely rather than representatively proportional. Not by accident, but design.
•  

 

• Part of the ‘design’ element was Returning Officer, Andrew Jordan, part of the Corbyn ‘Peace & Justice Project’ cabal: and as such privy to how many votes were cast and who for in real time in each region and nationally. As it happens, the union Jordan works for (the BMA) uses the Scottish STV ‘Droop’ system for internal elections, where votes of eliminated candidates are transferred at full value. Additionally, elections for the BMA Council (nearest equivalent to the CEC) are run by an external body Civica[125]. Thus, Jordan cannot feign ignorance about how undemocratic the voting system used was. Viewing voting figures in real time was a facility denied TM’s opponents. In case you doubt that, look at two contemporary X screenshots (courtesy of the indefatigable Ben Timberley aka the scourge of Pelican House[126]), taken while voting was ongoing. First look at the post [ABOVE] by @troovus, regular TM troll squadron member. How could he legitimately know “20,000 people have now voted in this election” without access to live data? Then there is Councillor Noor Jahan Begum’s post the day before voting ended. “Just one day left to vote in the Your Party leadership elections. Early indications suggest it’s on a knife edge”. How would one camp get access legitimately to such “early indications”? There is a reason why (for example) on the day of polling in council and parliamentary elections there is radio silence till results are in: so voters are not influenced on the day by such coverage. Live access to information by TM might well explain something puzzling: as the election period drew to a close TM issued messages asking supporters to vote for candidates in different order on various days and in different regions. Which points to TM possibly using live voting data denied others to steer their support in ways that gave them an unfair advantage. That the election was not run by an external impartial body is bound to encourage such suspicions. And the election was indeed on a knife edge: in the East of England for example, impressive independent candidate June Tobin lost out to TM’s Jo Rust by a mere 27 votes. Nor should we forget Karie Murphy screening members to ensure the ‘wrong’ types were not included in the ‘Sortitioned’ Members Oversight Committee supposedly overseeing the election, not even in place when it started and who have given no feedback anyway.

 

 

• Adopting the Imperiali voting system alone might have backfired, if the Zarah Sultana-supported Grassroots Left had swept the board: after all, endorsements showed TM the least popular show in town among active members. Hence something more than electoral system design was needed for TM to win: mobilising inactive members/recruiting new ones to ‘save the party’. The whole tenor of TM’s campaign was antagonistic witch-hunting, along with an inane call to ‘get the party back on track’—as if it wasn’t the Corbyn faction, in sole charge, who have run it into the buffers. Despite TM calls for ‘unity’, their headline proposals were red-baiting scare-mongering that would even make Tony Blair (if not Peter Mandelson) blush, such as (bearing repetition) “the Grassroots Left slate…have committed to overturn your Party’s constitution, which was overwhelmingly endorsed by members at the founding conference, in order to immediately recognise existing proto-branches on day one. We think this is wrong. While many proto-branches have been doing great work in their communities, not all members have been able to take part in them. Many are run by the Socialist Workers Party and other sectarian groups which comprise the Grassroots Left slate. These groups are more organised than ordinary individual members, who are effectively excluded from equal participation. They are seeking to exert control of the party through control of the branches”[127]. They do not mention there are only ‘proto-branches’ because the Corbyn faction have steadfastly prevented and still are, setting up actual branches! This, we contend, is no aberration but a deliberate strategy. Reference to ‘overturning the constitution’ is returned to later, but important to note this supposed TM ‘commitment’ to constitutional propriety. Importantly, none of the above facts, and TM’s staggering dishonesty and gross sectarianism: including denial one of their social media supporters referred to a GL candidate (who we have decided not to name) as a ‘house negro’, have made it into mainstream media coverage. Nor, in a dismissal that certainly points at potential institutional racism, has the YP CEC shown the slightest indication they will investigate this. As the election approached, TM’s messaging became even more hostile “Your Party…[is] in real danger of becoming…an angry fringe party that conducts purity tests at the door and rails against potential allies. And once again, Jeremy finds himself the target of abuse”[128]. Not only providing no evidence but subtly implying continuity between previous attacks from the Right and Leftist critiques now. And the ‘purity tests’ are those now being conducted with rigour unseen since the Salem Witch Trials by the TM controlled CEC, directed against socialists.
• While not known at the time: unlike the previous four facts, during the CEC Election YP spent £23,000 per month on ‘staffing’, £7,000 of which on employees seconded from P&JP[129]. It has now been revealed Ryan Donachie, who seems to have been responsible for preventing the Scottish YP Interim Committee from contacting members, has been and still is, employed by YP UK-wide to provide “administrative support”. He has admitted this, though not disclosed his reported £500 per day salary: the annual equivalent of £130,000 pa[130]! These jobs were never advertised, something Murphy has form for[131]. The £23,000 figure does not, we surmise, include money spent on commissioning external people to engage in phone bank canvassing. This, and increasingly frantic and regular emails, as well as the almost unprecedented use of postcards to urge inactive members to vote and offering £1.50 membership as the Election drew to a close, not only point to a clear conflict of interest but explain why the Corbyn faction are desperate to prevent non-TM members seeing the books

 

 

HOW THE CEC ELECTIONS WERE COVERED

Emails: especially to the Peace & Justice Project List and YP membership generally, which only the TM clique had the ability to send, plus intensive phone banking (lucratively sub-contracted to unknown external bodies), in addition to the electoral shenanigans above were important but not enough. For TM’s red-baiting/Corbyn worship framing to work, media allies, especially in the (nominally) Left press were essential, to encourage vaguely interested YP members to support ‘The Many’. The mainstream media only have had/have an interest in YP for the purpose of undermining them, especially the YP Left.

 

Sienna Rogers (Politics Home)—more mainstream than Leftist, and read by MPs–the day CEC voting started ran a scare story with the key takeaway (from the usual anonymous source ‘close to Corbyn’) “There is only one way this party can survive: a victory for The Many.”[132]. As is usual with media piranhas, she did not mention this alarmist headline had already been exclusively published by Megan Kenyon in The New Statesman on-line 30/1/26[133]. True to form as a compliant client journalist, whereas in Kenyon’s 12/12/25 article Sultana’s aspiration to be YP Parliamentary spokesperson had been dismissed as ““at odds with YP’s current leadership structure”, the sub-heading of this later Kenyon article was ‘Exclusive: The MP for Islington North will be the party’s parliamentary leader’.  No mention now of it being “at odds with YP’s current leadership structure”. Kenyon (like too many others) is so incapable of independent research she does not seem to have noticed, that 69 days after this article, and a full six weeks after the CEC Elections finished, ‘Parliamentary Leader’ Jeremy Corbyn has such contempt for even those who misguidedly voted for him to assume that post that as of 9/4/26 he was still registered just as an ‘Independent MP’[134]. The only Your Party MP is Sultana.

While neither are household names, narratives such as Rogers and Kenyon’s contribute to setting the tone of broader mainstream media in two ways: depicting YP as irretrievably divided and blaming Zarah Sultana and her allies for that division.

How the CEC Election outcome was reported is of great significance, given it has set the tone of how YP are portrayed from here on in.

The day results were announced, most media attention was on the Gorton & Denton by-election result, so BBC coverage was for once fairly straightforward, giving space to statements from both GL and Corbyn[135]. The Guardian, true to form, couldn’t resist twisting the knife. Alexandra Topping (who we came across above) has a surreal headline: ‘Your Party under Corbyn to work with Greens on ‘co-ordinated left-flank offensive”. Surreal because as has been borne out before during and after the CEC elections, the only real ‘offensive’ the TM clique are up for is one against their own members. Topping also wrote “Corbyn said it was time for the ‘real work’ to begin”—which raises a question she would not ask, why had it not begun earlier?  The main dagger-thrust was quoting the usual “sources close to Corbyn” as claiming Corbyn “will seek to rebuild bridges with pro-Gaza communities ‘alienated by his rival Zarah Sultana…Zarah alienated many people in Muslim communities by saying things like there was no place for social conservatives in the party , and we need to rebuild that trust”[136]. Zarah was not (of course) given right of reply to this slur. A casual reader might be forgiven for not realising Zarah is a Muslim, and Corbyn/Murphy etc aren’t. So the Guardian allowed presumably non-Muslim opponents to attack her unchallenged, though in a piss-poor pretence at balance finished the article with a congratulatory quote about Corbyn from ex-YP MP Adnan Hussain. Very Guardian that. A slightly different version of this article by Topping the same day said this of Sultana—”In the hours after the election result, there was little sign of an end to Your Party’s eternal Squid Game. Zarah Sultana issued a pugnacious statement warning there must be “no more witch-hunts or stitch-ups” and calling for the reinstatement of members who had been expelled”[137]. While reference to the Squid Game is bizarre, that the Guardian should still attack her is comforting in one way: the Establishment’s Left flank clearly do not see Corbyn as a threat anymore, but fear Zarah. Something to hold onto.

 

If Topping’s piece was poor, another Guardian piece by John Crace was vile. For him “hatreds seemed to be what gave Corbyn and Sultana a sense of purpose. A reminder that the left often prefers to pick fights with other groups on the left rather than the right-wing parties”[138]. Also a reminder that if you want serious political analysis, avoid the Guardian. While criticising delay in results being announced (fair comment) Crace does not point a finger at those running the show (TM) instead recycles the broad-brush stereotype “Once you’re addicted to chaos, it rather comes to define everything you do. It’s part of Your Party’s corporate culture”. This savant then makes the political observation that despite 800,000 expressing interest initially “people got bored of the inertia and the squabbling and started to look elsewhere, as the Greens under Zack Polanski became a viable force”. Largely true, but hold on a minute: the inertia was/is due to TM disempowering members, and as for squabbles: well as seen above the digital equivalent of toilet-paper that is the Guardian has actively participated in inflaming those squabbles. Before moving on from this odious creep, two snippets of interest in the article—not explored. First is reference to oversight committee member Steph Pike saying “the voting system had been nothing to do with her”, and the aside that “no-one seemed to have much faith in the voting system”. One for a Guardian political correspondent to look at? Maybe not…

Other mainstream media coverage was minimal, and broadly factual[139]. As was, broadly, mention by Sienna Rogers, who did on the one hand note Sultana was the only YP MP. On the other hand, she recycled without demur BS from the TM clique that “Corbyn officially becoming a Your Party MP is a formality that needs to go through the necessary CEC and parliamentary procedures, a source close to him explained”[140]. Be that as it may, this means her headline ‘Jeremy Corbyn Officially Elected Parliamentary Leader of Your Party’ was not true when she wrote it and still isn’t for he could not have been ‘officially’ installed as a member of a Parliamentary Party he was not in then, or now. But, hey, why let facts get in the way of a (meaningless) headline. That wouldn’t do!

Turning to the Left media, yes we have to start with Kenyon. Her report was broadly factual, but threw in the morsel that “Sultana recently told the i newspaper that she would consider doing a deal with Zack Polanski’s Green Party in any forthcoming election”[141]. One can only surmise she mentions this to engage in Green-baiting as a change from Red-baiting.

Rivkah Brown at Novara Media got some things right, stating “With a near-supermajority on the CEC, Corbyn’s faction is going to be able to do more or less whatever it likes”[142]. She is also correct saying “Corbyn will now be, for the second time, the one thing he never wanted to be: the leader of a political party”. Indeed. On the debit side, Brown showed she still hadn’t read both policy offers, claiming “Grassroots Left was by far the most communicative during the campaign, throwing out pledges as outlandish as abolishing the monarchy and as mundane as financial transparency. The Many kept mostly shtum, let the other side do the talking, and was handsomely rewarded”. This is not, as stated above, an accurate representation of the two platforms, except is an oblique admission the TM clique had/have few specific policies. There is the usual invective against Zarah—”more Sultana gun-jumping….the latest instance of Sultana misjudging her own power in the party”. All this drip-drip of poison is tedious, but no doubt effective to an extent. That Brown might have shaken the Runes does not mean she can read them, naively (being charitable) believing “Corbyn’s super-majority…will…mean that the party is far more likely to start contesting elections ASAP, rather than once it has built up an army of grassroots organisers”. Really? So How does deliberate CEC sabotage of Scottish YP’s attempts to stand in the once every five years Holyrood elections fit this scenario? You know, the sabotage that has now led to the entire Scots Interim Steering Committee and elected CEC Representative Niall Christie resigning[143]. While obviously these Scottish events (for example) transpired way after Brown’s article, that does not let her or Novara off the hook. With the best will in the world, aside from intellectual laziness (Corbyn is not as she stated a member of YP in Parliament) Brown did not factor in to her article the TM clique’s long-standing visceral loathing of those “ultra-leftists’ whom Corbyn’s camp is gloating over having defeated” rather believing the defeated “will, whether they like it or not, be the engine of the party’s growth”.  We think not, on current form. TM actually hate the bulk of active members, and not just in Scotland. This has always been plain as a pikestaff. Brown did make an intriguing utterance about the electoral system used: “The CEC election’s single transferable vote system was, members told themselves, far less likely to produce a plurality than first-past-the-post. Corbyn won one anyway. Party outsiders might’ve seen this coming”. But left it there.

Next up was the Morning Star, trying hard to be upbeat, claiming “Your Party now has the chance to make a fresh start following the conclusion of the election to its first central executive committee, the party’s collective leadership. The poll saw supporters of the slate backed by Jeremy Corbyn secure a clear majority, meaning Corbyn will be named the new left party’s parliamentary leader. He rightly called the result a vote “for a mass, socialist party that takes the fight to Starmer and Farage”[144]. True, they accept there are obstacles: loss of goodwill, lack of union or Labour Left support, but the rest is a pipe-dream: that “Corbyn, as parliamentary leader, should seek to harness the talents and popularity of Sultana”—little chance of that. They really visit cuckoo-land with the declaration “The party is also overdue a serious strategic discussion on how it seeks to open up the path to socialism, what class forces it seeks to unite and mobilise and how, and how it will relate to the mass movements for change which have always been the well-spring of Corbynism”. You have to ask, do the Morning Star really believe Corbyn (who has no interest) and the deadbeats/petty tyrants/control freaks who make up the TM clique ruling circle even understand what a ‘socialist strategic discussion’ (as opposed to a witch-hunt) actually is? We don’t.

 

Mention should be made here of the SWP’s take, or rather double-take: on 26/2 the SWP’s Hector Sierra said the result “has to immediately be a spur for getting Your Party back on the right track with no delay”[145]. They (like other far left groups) also reference the restriction of democratic debate/lack of resources for branches/a biased electoral system. Two weeks later, after the first CEC Meeting showed just how nakedly sectarian the TM clique are, an abrupt about turn: the SWP’s new line, articulated by the same Comrade Sierra in ‘Where next after Your Party failure?’ is that “to build the stronger left that we need, the key battles will not be inside Your Party or whoever controls its structures”. So, perhaps SWP withdrawal? However, gnomically “we are not announcing our departure. And where there are active proto-branches, we will work with people in building the fightback against racism, war and austerity”[146].  Nothing like clarity from the working-class revolutionary vanguard…Nothing like it.

The day before CEC Election voting started (9/2/26) an unsigned Canary piece outlined typically unhinged tweets by Laura Alvarez (Corbyn’s wife) questioning the credentials of Islington GL candidate Anahita Zardoshti. As they put it “we’re at a moment where socialists are building back a meaningful resistance. And with the Green Party successfully tapping into the burning desire for change in the country, a Your Party that shuts down internal criticism or wastes time with factional arguments may not last too long”[147]. All true.

Wheeldon reported (13/1/26) Zarah Sultana supporting the Grassroots Left CEC Election slate positively—”This exciting new platform of the Grassroots Left represents a very welcome shift in domestic politics and has clearly revived considerable hope among socialists”[148]. Given that only a few days earlier the TM clique had fed to their client journalists the claim that the ICO had recommended referring Zarah to the police, this article was an implicit riposte. The same day, she reported Sultana’s views on unrest in Iran[149]–in case you wonder why not Corbyn’s views too, aside from his far greater MSM access, as stated YP’s official channels report nothing Zarah says, only the views (and frequent peregrinations) of St Jeremy. The next day (14/1/26) Wheeldon covered Zarah’s warm words about Jeremy Corbyn[150], then on 16/1/26 that The Many Slate wanted to overturn Conference decisions on collective leadership/dual membership. Wheeldon stated “Corbyn and The Many appear to be divorcing from the collective leadership model decided by members. It is hard to avoid the optics that he is seeking to take power away rather than work collaboratively with Sultana to empower communities, given the apparent move to row back on these radical decisions from conference”[151]. While TM supporters might label this client journalism, it is rather reporting facts, as subsequent events have shown. Wheeldon’s next foray into YP politics featured (5/2/26) Zarah’s announcement two days earlier that she would support the ultimately (and splendidly) victorious candidate Hannah Spencer in the Gorton & Denton by-election. The article did not deny that by doing so Zarah was disagreeing with an earlier statement that same day from the ‘Grassroots Left’ CEC slate. But all this shows is GL was not a monolith: unlike TM[152].

 

On 10/2/26 The Canary ran not one but two investigative Wheeldon articles plus a straightforward dispute story. The first exposed a shabby deal whereby Corbyn traded endorsement of independent election candidates in return for supporting TM’s CEC slate[153]. One of those endorsed, Noor Jahan Begum indeed won a CEC seat and is now YP Spokesperson. The second exposed Karie Murphy’s nefarious role in choosing ‘sortitioned’ members to allegedly oversee (in fact rubber stamp) the recent flawed CEC election process[154]. The third reported a dispute between Claudia Webbe/other TM supporters and a presumably Grass Roots Left aligned Black YP Member’s Network[155].

Wheeldon’s report the day CEC Election results were announced (26/2/26) pulled no punches, quite rightly most aimed in TM’s direction—”Jeremy Corbyn, his slate, and his team have faced considerable member backlash for controlling and divisive tactics that have turned what was once an exciting project into a toxic, polarised environment. After all, not letting people have a say or seat at the table is bound to increase suspicion and provoke defensive actions from those blocked out. This resulted in accusations of toxic ‘Labour Right’ tactics being rampantly deployed in a fight for a small few to control the process…. We have received multiple reports supported by verified evidence which informed the suggestion that Corbyn and his team were more than happy to subvert democracy for their own desire to control the party building process. Considering reports from the outset of Sultana being blocked from contributing equally, seemingly preferring for her to be seen and not heard, a significant proportion of members have raised alarm over patriarchal ‘sexist man club’ attitudes inherent in The Many”. She also commented “At the Canary, we have faced relentless abuse and criticism for insisting on transparency and holding those in power to account. Yet we have refused to back down, because we believe all power deserves scrutiny — not just the power of those we oppose. After all, power corrupts, and humans are fallible”[156].

As a summary of what was covered (and wasn’t) regarding the CEC elections, the grid below is hopefully useful.

 

Subsequently, after a lull, with the May English and also Holyrood/Senedd elections looming, Wheeldon returned to covering YP. No need to summarise their content here: they are well worth reading: not least because she is equally probing when examining Green Party issues as those in Your Party[157].

We have explored Wheeldon’s YP output in some detail not because it is Pulitzer Prize winning material (necessarily!) but to show that for the TM clique, wanting to prevent proper scrutiny of their actions, the Canary in general, and Wheeldon in particular, are a real problem, and confidently predict increasing attempts to undermine her specifically and the Canary in general. As will be seen below, they have already begun, a process continued by yet another Nicola James article. Nicola James is a piece of work, her limited grasp of reality worsened by AI slop. Thus, she claims YP is democratic because “The constitution places power directly in members’ hands, in three ways….Members vote themselves, not through delegates. Conference decisions bind the CEC….[Also the Constitution stipulates] “All Branches shall run regular public-facing, local community assemblies. These assemblies shall be open, democratic forums, contributing to community activity and party policy development…[and finally] across leadership elections, constitutional change and major decisions. Every member has an equal, direct vote, not mediated through anyone…This is the model. Members do not need representatives to speak for them. The constitution already gives them a direct voice”. Her conclusion is “the CEC is not a parliament and it is not a representative chamber”[158]. The import is chilling: she and the rest of the TM clique do not believe in democracy, or even understand what it is. Aside from the fact there are (still) no functioning branches, TM have already shown they care nothing for Conference decisions. If you add the rigged CEC election, and explicitly side-lining any attempt by the CEC minority to raise member concerns, the democratic deficit is complete. From this perspective, minority CEC members do not represent anybody, or anything. This assumes of course that the CEC majority are in agreement with all Conference decisions, and indeed, that these (so far mythical) assemblies and branches are too. Preposterous. But the idea that CEC representatives not in TM are non-persons with no legitimate role contributes both to their dehumanisation (hence the gravestone taunt by TM CEC gimp Sam Gorst) and that of anybody committed to uncovering the truth like the Canary.

We do have criticisms of the Canary: two important things have eluded them and almost everybody else. On one hand, the malign influence of Roger Hallam and his coterie. Though his attempts to rip off YP funds on a large scale were rebuffed, the malevolent anti-democratic instruments of sortition/Assemblies he argued for have provided a perfect mechanism for TM to disempower members while preaching participation. Next is the nefarious influence of Diem 25!/Progressive International: in terms of software/IT ‘advice’ and personnel like James Schneider, who we ourselves have now become far more critical of than we were. ‘Progressive International’, a network of global radical ‘celebrities’ headed up by Yanis Varoufakis, deserves critical scrutiny it has not received to date. Watch this space.

Predictably, like a fevered lapdog Kenyon is still spinning furiously on behalf of the TM clique, in a way that is now embarrassing[159]. For her sanity, she should give it a rest.

 

 

THE CANARY IS A PROBLEM: FOR SOME

 The Canary threatens the powers that be, and is, as Nicol Williamson’s Merlin said in John Boorman’s Excalibur “a dream to some a nightmare to others”. Because it

–is a proven threat to the Labour Right, past and present

–covers a range of stories in a searching way no other outlets do

–has extensive and fearless coverage of YP, especially (but not exclusively) by Wheeldon. Such coverage is a problem not just for those who want YP to fail, but also the ruling TM clique. And of course there will be overlap, for various reasons.

–is part of a loose but formidable phalanx of UK alternative media currently: including not just Declassified but also Middle East Eye & The Electronic Intifada.

–has recently had an influx of new finance in the shape of Cecil Hetherington. A point worth developing.

>>> In September 2025 Canary CEO Steve Topple told AMediaOperator web-site “The Canary attracted 520,000 site visits in July, which represented a 70% increase year-on-year”: good but nowhere near their previous heights in the Corbyn-led Labour Party era–reported 2016 monthly traffic of 7.5 million[160]. As recounted by Anushka Asthana, the Canary’s peak was “8.5 million hits a month. In 2017 the Canary was the UK’s 288^th most read website, above the Times, Reuters and the Daily Star. Moreover, Corbyn supporters trusted the site equally to the Guardian, their other favourite source of information. And so McSweeney had an aim—to schmooze the Guardian and kill the Canary. ‘Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us’ he told…MP’s”[161]. As of February 2026 monthly site visits are now 728,000 (verified)[162]: a creditable increase, but still way down on their peak despite far more people today using the internet for news/information. Topple intimated in that interview the Canary’s £150,000 pa income still meant they did not make a profit, and it is unlikely they do yet. The mechanism used so effectively by Labour Together to defund the Canary was to pressure advertisers and many have not returned which explains their fund-raising drive launched 17/4/25[163]. Which is exactly where millionaire Cecil Hetherington came in (on whom see below): as somebody with spare cash Hetherington is/was certainly on the lookout for media investment opportunities, indicated also by purchasing Reach shares, owning just over 5% as of 24/11/25[164]. What would be, and is, concerning for those who want to strangle the Canary is Hetherington’s involvement not only might presage expansion, but in the event of vexatious litigation he might be able to help them fend off hostiles. Doubly disturbing.

 

 

ANDREW FEINSTEIN & FRIENDS

Feinstein is a deeply impressive figure, who played an important part in YP formation though never formally joined[165]. South African, he was an ANC MP 1994-2001, until departure due to opposing corrupt dealings with arms companies. In the 2024 UK General Election, from scratch, in six weeks, he came second to Keir Starmer in his Camden constituency, gaining 7,812 votes to Starmer’s 18,884. Given the catastrophic collapse in Labour’s vote since and providing Feinstein gets a free run on the Left (no Greens) every chance he can unseat the genocide-enabling fake. Perhaps (sadly) him not joining was a wise choice given the way things have turned out. YP’s loss: the seriousness and value of his perspective can be seen here[166]–which is not to say we agree with all his political strategy. Feinstein is a substantial and principled figure arousing great enmity in those who are neither: such as Alan Gibbons, TM’s North West gopher/purveyor of fiction[167]. Gibbons is not alone: another TM supporter, Nicola James, has written a bizarre Substack where the substantive point is questioning Feinstein’s educational qualifications[168]. She may (or may not) have a point about whether the term psychotic applies to genocide perpetrators (think of Hannah Arendt’s ‘The Banality of Evil’) but looking at the IDF’s depraved antics, seemingly approved of by most Israelis (for instance lionising a soldier captured on camera gang-raping a Palestinian hostage), Feinstein may be right. Wonder what her qualifications are mind?

 

Three further salient things about Feinstein. First, since 2019 he has worked with Paul Holden, author of ‘The Fraud’, in an outfit called Shadow World Investigations, devoted to exposing corruption worldwide[169]. And Feinstein has been doing packed out author events with Holden to promote that book. Second, in February 2019 Feinstein joined the board of Declassified UK but isn’t formally involved with the Canary at all: remember that.

 

Declassified UK is the greatest media threat to British state rogue actions and dirty dealings around today. It was co-founded in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, the latter author of the definitive book on Britain’s collusion with radical Islamists[170]. While their site does not even come near the Canary’s in terms of monthly visits: 175,400 monthly in February 2026[171] it is vitally important. While Asthana’s book quoted above doesn’t credit him, it was John McEvoy then of the Canary who in December 2020 revealed McSweeney’s role in trying to shut the Canary down[172]. Now, McEvoy is Declassified UK Chief Reporter. Important stories are so numerous, we only mention a few: e.g. the revelation GCHQ spies on schoolchildren led to Declassified being blacklisted[173]: GCHQ, rightly, has been of ongoing interest[174]. On the Gaza Genocide, Declassified’s research has been phenomenal: including early revelation of Labour Cabinet members funded by the Israel Lobby (by-line John McEvoy[175]). No doubt explaining why McEvoy was banned from the 2024 Labour Conference[176]. We both (Heidi especially for reasons definitely TMI) immensely enjoy videos where Phil Miller tries to get Labour Friends of Genocide (Israel) to explain themselves: for instance here[177]. No surprise Declassified covered (unlike the MSM) Andrew Feinstein reporting Labour Friends of Israel to the Electoral Commission regarding their opaque funding (by-line Martin Williams)[178].

 

 

THE STATE’S IDEAL SCENARIO

 Given the vast majority of the MSM are craven lickspittles, complicit in covering up political corruption when it mattered (the Starmer Project for example) and ongoing war crimes (Gaza/Lebanon/Iran/the West Bank etc.) outlets like the Canary/Declassified etc are absolutely crucial, as too would be the genuinely insurgent Left-populist outfit YP initially seemed it might become. Conversely, what would suit the establishment regarding both alternative media and YP are the following:

• A tame neutered YP: exactly what TM are setting about cobbling together, once they’ve purged enough active members.
• A demoralised (and hopefully soon departed from YP) Zarah Sultana and others believing in an insurgent formation
• No objective coverage of events inside YP, instead heavily-sanitised pap fed to the Guardian/BBC/New Statesman unchallenged.
• Discrediting influential figures/outlets like Andrew Feinstein/Declassified/the Canary
• Beyond discrediting outlets, actually shutting them down, as with Rachel Riley and the Canary previously, seeking to entangle them in expensive litigation/financial damage control.
• Ensuring no/minimal reference to crucial investigative stories in the MSM (e.g. Winstanley’s book) except if they can be trashed without right of reply (e.g. Paul Holden’s ‘The Fraud’ courtesy of Kuenssberg[179]).
• Picking off individual journalists and charging them with bogus terror offences, as with Asa Winstanley, raided by Counter-Terror Police in October 2024. A raid reported by both the Jewish News and Jewish Chronicle (though not the charges being dropped)[180]. This raid was totally ignored by the Guardian and BBC, save for one throwaway Observer sentence a month later[181]. When charges were eventually dropped, this was not covered in the MSM either (including the Guardian/BBC). But thankfully was elsewhere[182].
• Contrast with the Alison Pearson case[183]. The Guardian published numerous articles about this affair when she was merely visited by police once, and politely asked about a Tweet[184]. Unlike Winstanley she did not have devices seized or face ‘terror’ charges. Which shows media suppression of the Winstanley case to have been strategic. Aimed at effect, not publicity. This is what we are dealing with, and why alternative outlets are precious.
• Targeting individual journalists with online character assassination, sometimes (not always) using cut outs/proxies: we believe this applies to Maddison Wheeldon: see below.

 

ATTACK-DOG ONE:MICHNA

As sure as day follows night, on 3/3/26 a Substack account (SKIDROWRADIO) only live since 2/12/25 (just two days after the YP Conference) posted an article by a character hiding behind the name Oojamaflipper that grabbed our attention: ‘Exposed: The Canary Lies for The Sultana Faction’[185]. This attracted us not just because of the main focus: an attack on Canary journalist Maddison Wheeldon, but related digs at Andrew Feinstein and Declassified UK. For us, these were both Red Flags: it takes little thought to work out who wants to silence these outfits/Feinstein.  On 2/12/25 Oojamaflipper posted a You-Tube video purporting to be a ‘Your Party Conference Autopsy’[186]: only purporting because he either didn’t attend Conference, as his account is so demonstrably false, or did attend and decided (or was tasked to) blatantly lie. A botched post-mortem on the wrong corpse: the real one is still alive if only just. The bulk (two thirds) of this repetitive rant railed about/against trans liberation. Side-stepping the obvious view (that he has sexual identity issues) reviewing this character’s output we see it as more strategic. He (or those tasking him) believes or wants people to believe Sultana’s unapologetic support for trans-identifying people is a weak spot, hence the obsession. Indeed, not only have 13 of his 66 Substack posts/reposts (as of 13/4/26 when last checked) been directly about trans issues, he repeatedly returns to the topic in the 47 posts attacking Sultana/the Grassroots Left/anybody favouring YP democracy. We guess he missed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support for trans, included in his November 2025 victory speech: here’s a link[187]. The most egregious lie in his rant is repeated in a contemporaneous Substack, insultingly titled ‘Agent Sultana Has Achieved Her Brief: The Fifth Column Is Strong With This One’[188], “the trans ultras crowbarred their cause celebre into every unrelated debate, with multiple warnings from the chair, and audience heckles when the chair applied normal debate rules”. In fact, not only was there far too little time for debate, it was the Chair who was frequently challenged: for not allowing points of order (meaning the Conference was not sovereign), preventing discussion of virtually any amendments, and cutting the microphone/video feed of speakers criticising the undemocratic proceedings. ‘Normal Debate Rules’ definitely did not apply: but solely due to those running the Conference, not attendees.

Such a false account of the Conference alone makes him a liar, one who has determinedly sought anonymity, using a bewildering number of fake names/profiles/platforms. They include: Oojamaflipper/SkidrowRadio/Ben Jammin/Veritas Primor for a start. He is actually Benjamin Michna, in 2019 a member of Gedling (Nottinghamshire) Labour Party[189], now in Gedling YP (or what remains of it).

The term ‘Fifth Column’ is insulting because (for those who do not know) the ‘Fifth Column’ was how fascist General Franco described those aiding his cause behind enemy (Republican) lines in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39. Nonetheless, glad to see he is conversant with a term that applies far more to him than Zarah. And rhetoric he habitually uses to avoid proper debate: for instance the irascible (and highly entertaining though with miniscule reach) Weekly Worker coverage by ‘Carla Roberts’, has also been attacked, Oojamaflipper stating in a roundabout but nonetheless conclusive way, they are “agents of the state”[190].

 

Intrigued by Oojamaflipper’s extensive and virulent output we delved a little. He claims (and did also to one of us in a Substack exchange) to be a Marxist (in his ‘autopsy’ video) and you might think is surely a socialist at least (by being in Your Party). That, however, does not ring true. In June 2023 he set up a Blue-Sky profile, strapline stating ‘Left vs Right is all over. The 99% are all wings’[191]. Really? Even better (or worse) his skidrowradio YouTube channel shows him to have been (and a Substack post 29/1/26 indicates still is) a Covidiot: somebody who denies/denied the reality of Covid. A You-Tube video dated 9/5/21 has him using a loudhailer to heckle people attending to take a Covid jab, including an aside about ‘One World Government’[192]. His take on the last General Election, online 5/7/24, underlines a conspiratorial mindset[193].  We accept he declares himself a Jeremy Corbyn fan (in current circumstances merely meaning a cult devotee), but that, we suggest, even if genuine, is a subsidiary aspect of his worldview, trumped in importance by the belief “nothing happens by accident…I am more convinced than ever of this after the plandemic fiasco…we have a uniparty in this country, there is a shift towards a global network of policy making and decision making…we now have policies made by people who don’t stand for election”—he names the World Health Organisation, the World Economic Forum and the IMF, Starmer described as a “puppet of these organisations, not really making decisions on his own”. Whereas it is usual for conspiracists to name-check Jews, even if covertly, he does not. Which may (or may not) be telling. He claims Tories wanted to lose the 2024 Election, desiring “their vote to collapse” because while they support “the general direction of travel towards global fascism, unaccountable, unelected corporate ruled control over people’s lives” nonetheless “they don’t want to be anywhere near the powerful next phase of this uniparty shift to global fascism”. Exactly why this should be so is never explained: thus showing a grasp of politics equal to BBC village idiot Chris Mason. As the video ends, he mildly criticises Corbyn: but only because he didn’t say enough during Covid that Covidiots would approve of, or campaign like ex-Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.  Neatly showing Oojamaflipper is no leftist, but far more invested in Covid-related (and now anti-Trans) conspiracy theorising.

In the bigger scheme of things this sad individuals confused ideology would be neither here nor there: were it not for for the fact he attacks Zarah Sultana’s political activity relentlessly: and also journalists seeking to cover YP fairly. Which brings us to the Canary. Oojamaflipper’s conspiratorial mindset is fully displayed in the article on Wheeldon with devastating, but for him counter-productive, effect.  There is a possibility he just allows others in TM to post disinformation as if him. This thought arose because in an exchange with one of us on Substack while writing this piece (16/3/26), he seems to categorise research as stalking, and claims videos are hidden which aren’t! Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Using Occam’s razor we’ll assume pro tem all stuff under his various pseudonyms is by Michna, even though some aspects (e.g. on external caucuses below) clearly read like somebody not wearing a tinfoil hat.

 

 

MICHNA  LIES FOR THE CORBYN FACTION

 

While we could have critiqued any Oojamaflipper/Michna article, the one looked at here[194] is the most important. Notable for what he says about Feinstein/Declassified as well as Wheeldon, precipitating multiple red flags. For another sample example of him lying about YP, see here[195].

 

 

TO WHIP OR NOT TO WHIP?

The piece starts breathlessly: “Leaked screenshots from a “Grassroots Left” (GL) group chat expose The Canary’s Maddison Wheeldon plotting with slate members to create fake stories that bias Zarah Sultana’s faction.

Those ‘leaked’ screenshots do no such thing: all they actually show is a journalist admittedly close to Zarah (Wheeldon) fishing for quotes to embellish a story. Like all journalists do: does Oojamaflipper really not know how the media works? Ostensibly not. We would be extremely interested, nonetheless, in leaked screenshots between Karie Murphy and Gabriel Pogrund of the Sunday Times before his hatchet-job attempting to derail YP in July 2025. We can well believe Wheeldon’s grasp of the issues is greater than the GL member on the WhatsApp chat but hardly a big deal.

More importantly what about this fake story excited our intrepid investigator? Well, he takes up the tale in spurious detail…The ”diabolical revelation from the chat logs was that of coordinated plans to create a false narrative around the use of a “toxic whip-style system”. Wheeldon fed the group a quote that she wanted a Grassroots Left candidate to repeat back to her, to fit a piece she was writing that would cast dispersions on the democratic integrity of Corbyn’s The Many (TM) slate. Wheeldon spoon-fed the chat – “Would anyone like to offer a quote on the very clear absence of a toxic whip-style system in the grassroots left and the reality it truly is a new type of politics being born?”

So, diabolical plans, false narrative, eh? Hold that thought….and apologies for quoting the follow-up text extensively.

He speaks of a “serious plot: the Grassroots Left appear to envisage maintaining a parallel, unelected “leadership” structure that would issue formal voting instructions to GL candidates on the CEC. That raises a structural problem. Once individuals are elected to the CEC they hold a mandate from the whole party, not from a faction. They may retain political loyalties, networks and shared priorities, but their authority derives from a collective electoral process.

If an external caucus seeks to direct those elected officials through binding instructions that sit outside the party’s constitutional framework, it effectively creates a second chain of command. That is undemocratic in mechanical terms for three reasons:

1. It displaces the mandate.
   CEC members are accountable to the electorate that chose them. If they are expected to follow instructions from an unelected body, decision-making power shifts from voters to a self-selecting group.
2. It bypasses constitutional structures.
   Party rules establish how policy is proposed, debated and decided. A parallel directive structure substitutes informal authority for formal procedure, undermining the integrity of agreed processes. Decisions appear to be made inside the party’s organs but are in fact pre-determined elsewhere.
3. It weakens transparency and accountability.
   Elected officials can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately removed. An unelected caucus issuing binding instructions cannot be directly scrutinised or sanctioned by the wider membership. That insulates real decision-makers from democratic consequence”.

Oojamaflipper complains GL fears about TM were a false narrative: they were not. As detailed in all three GL/Independent CEC members report backs on the CEC meetings 8/3/26, 22/3/26 and 12/4/26.  Taking 8/3/26 for a start:

• (4.1) Propose “Collate agendas that are set democratically and autonomously by the CEC”: Not passed (14-9)
• (4.2) A request to add “Promote and maintain effective communication and engagement with diverse communities, including BAME groups, smaller local organisations, and underrepresented members, to ensure inclusive participation in party activities.” to Membership Officer role: Not passed (14-9)
• (4.3) Replace “BAME” with “global majority”: Not passed (14-9)
• (4.4) Electing national officers by STV. Not passed (11-9)
• (4.5) Removing extra-constitutional roles of parliamentary leader and membership officer. Not passed (14-9)”

And so on: all other of numerous votes (save an uncontroversial statement on Iran) went the same way, as did the election of officers.

In other words, what GL (and others such as ‘Platform For A Democratic Party’ and Democratic Bloc) feared has come to pass: there is a rigid whip system in operation: run by TM, who allowed in this first meeting a maximum 30 seconds if that for members to speak in support of amendments and there were tellingly no speeches against. TM intend to reduce the CEC to a neutered ratification chamber, all major data about finance/personnel and deciding political strategy now reserved for an all-TM officers group! Even worse, though, given the poor calibre of most TM CEC members, Karie Murphy, Angus Satow Alex Nunn & Artin Giles were present on 8/3 as officials (either in person or online), though their identities are ludicrously supposed to be confidential. For characteristically waspish but sadly accurate take on CEC proceedings 8/3,22/3 & 12/4 ‘Carla Roberts’ has it right[196].

The pattern was set in stone at the initial CEC 8/3: in every single thing discussed but one, TM had (without discussion as everything was pre-determined by them elsewhere) 14 votes. So much for “mandate from a whole party, not a faction” (Oojamaflipper’s allegation against GL). The one occasion on 8/3 with only 11 votes rather than 14 for the TM position is instructive. While the Constitution (Clause 3.2.6) of YP Standing Orders requires elections for officer roles to be conducted using Single Transferable Votes, the TM-dominated CEC decided to flout this. Instead, they relied on Clause 3bv of the Constitution which merely says, “the CEC shall elect from within their number National Officers”. In an attempt to justify this “overturning the Constitution” which the TM ironically had accused Grassroots Left of planning, another TM propagandist (Nicola James) in a contribution Restacked by Oojamaflipper let the cat out of the bag—“in the event of any ambiguity, the CEC correctly determined that the constitution takes precedence, and having calculated the result either way, it would have made no difference whatsoever to the outcome”[197]. But of course there was/is no “ambiguity”—that would only arise if the Constitution had specified an alternate method of election. She is right the dominant TM faction would have sewn up every position for their clique either way: after all, their faction is indeed a “a second chain of command” (another Oojamaflipper allegation against GL). And they are no doubt (as Nicola James’ piece indicates) furious CEC members excluded from exercising genuine oversight have dared to report this fact, their next move on 22/3 was to try and prevent such reporting in future via a ‘Code of Conduct’[198]. It’s like Josef Stalin had never left: come to think of it, ever seen Karie Murphy and Joe Stalin in the same room? Official YP accounts of the 8/3, 22/3 & 12/4 meetings read like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five time-travel to the 1934 Soviet Union Communist Party Congress and have a jolly good time, no bad feeling witnessed and lashings of ginger beer all round. In reality each meeting gets worse and worse: so by 12/4 who voted for what is now secret removing even a semblance of accountability.

From the above it follows Oojamaflipper’s attack on Wheeldon for trying “to caveat by implying, without evidence, that some other, nefarious version of a whip was being used by Corbyn. It’s totes different, you guys!” is a non-sequitur. Not only are TM CEC members acting like a brainwashed cult (voting from 8/3 on to allow officials like Murphy in the room for the entirety of each meeting: unprecedented for officers in a normal political party) they do not even attempt to hide it by having the semblance of discussion. This shown in plain sight at the 12/4 meeting, regarding an amendment allowing Scottish YP to decide for itself on Dual Membership with other parties. The non-TM Report takes up the story: “The next amendment was by Niall and focused again on similar principles as the amendments above. Surprisingly, following a Zoom poll, this amendment was approved. The Chair then paused and said that the title was wrong on the PowerPoint slide, even though the text of the amendment was correct, so the CEC would need to re-run the vote. 

The contributors to the report challenged this as the amendment text on screen was clear and the vote had been run. It was raised that a vote cannot be set aside because the result doesn’t go in the majority’s favour. It was also highlighted that overturning a CEC decision requires a two-thirds majority. Niall made 6 points of order, asking for justification on this, and raising a conflict of interest. These were all ruled out of order. He was threatened with disciplinary action by the chair for raising these. Jenn called a break. Grace Lewis stated that the only way this would be an issue is if the other CEC members were working from a sheet of voting instructions. This was not denied”[199]. Further detail was provided by CEC Member Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi in a meeting organised by YP Connections “the Zoom poll had the wrong section number on it. So, when the Zoom poll result was announced, our amendment had passed. And then the chair started saying, oh, um, I seem to have misled people I’m really sorry, we’ll have to re-run that vote. And we said, hang on a minute, there’s been a vote, you can’t just decide to rerun it. What had obviously happened was that the people in the meeting were just voting according to a list that had been sent around, telling them to vote for this one and against this one, by number. And, although the content was actually in writing on their screens, and was read out and everything, when it came to voting, they all voted as if it was one of the amendments they’re meant to approve. I thought that was hilarious”[200]. Doesn’t sound funny to us.

Those of us following YP from the start, who have attended one of their stage-managed (Sheffield apart) Assemblies (the first in Norwich was atrocious[201]) have always known this would be the case. In conclusion here therefore, what Oojamaflipper laughably calls a “diabolical plot” was nothing of the sort: CEC reality to date shows the ‘plotters’ are the TM cabal. And it isn’t a binary conflict: there are three independents there (or were until Scotland’s Niall Christie resigned in disgust), and some successful candidates signed the Democratic Bloc’s pledges on transparency and open-ness[202].

 

 

THE CANDIDATE SELECTION COUP THAT WASN’T

Next allegation against Wheeldon (though not deemed as important as the ‘diabolical plot’ that wasn’t remember) “The leak also revealed Sultana and her husband Craig Lloyd planned to impose a top-down candidate selection process for the Gorton & Denton by-election. The chat logs, published by Twitter user @EL4JC, reveal serious contraventions of the GL mantra “Democracy, Accountability and Transparency”.

 

What the WhatsApp messages actually show (again) is hardly dramatic: Wheeldon in contact with Zarah’s husband who had suggested they (presumably him and Zarah) were “looking for candidates”.  Maybe they were: but the key point is another member on the chat saying “I hope they mean they will support local members to stand if they want to”. Admirable sentiments and no reason to suppose this would not have happened had local members wanted that. Oojamaflipper however distorts this to “Wheeldon appears to have been consulted about Zarah’s efforts to handpick a candidate for Gorton & Denton before the GL were aware”. Yet no indication this was anything more than speculation about an important by-election, so certainly does not deserve the description ‘consultation’. The very fact Wheeldon mentioned this matter on a WhatsApp chat with prominent GL members like Chloe Braddock shows this was no secret from GL anyway. Oojamaflipper refers to “Sultana’s plan to dictate a GL-biased candidate in an election the party was not ready to contend”. Yet when this WhatsApp chat was posted (24/1 proven by reference to Zarah’s Instagram post on Andy Burnham) the Manchester Party as a whole had not discussed the by-election: they did the next day (25/1) and initially their intention was to stand[203]. Only on February 2^nd, after a meeting between Corbyn Murphy & selected local members sworn to secrecy (so much for TM transparency) did YP officially decide not to stand. Such casual dishonesty is Oojamaflipper’s key trait. He then (predictably) implies Zarah was behind the GL Twitter statement not backing the Green candidate, saying she “distanced herself from that statement after huge backlash”. No storm in a teacup but a piddle in a thimble. Even more pertinent, these WhatsApp discussions had no bearing on the Wheeldon article published about Gorton & Denton (5/2/26)[204]. In which case even Oojamaflipper’s lurid headline ‘Exposed: The Canary Lies For the Sultana Faction’ and the claim Wheeldon was “plotting with slate members to create fake stories that bias Zarah Sultana’s faction” also fall. There is only one planned Wheeldon story referred to above, and inasmuch as it flagged up TM’s dictatorial & undemocratic practices, all three CEC’s have shown Wheeldon was spot on.

Ultimately, Oojamaflipper’s attacks on Wheeldon regarding stories she has written do not strike home. However Michna is not done with insinuations and conspiracy theorising, and at this point it gets very murky, when Andrew Feinstein enters the picture…Or rather, Oojamaflipper would have you think it does, though in reality it reflects badly on him, and another repeating this drivel, Nicola James.

Predictably, Oojamaflipper takes exception to Topple’s 30/10/25 article on MOU mentioned above. He does not (of course) refute it, indeed I have seen no public refutation, instead quotes (note the appeal to authority) “former NHS Public Governor Nicola James on Twitter” who merely rambles about ‘right of reply’ and whether looking out of the window might show if it is raining or not. Laughable: were this clique of Stalinist clowns not driving YP into the buffers, at speed.

 

 

REVISITING LA-LA LAND

Unable to refute Canary revelations about the MOU smear story, Oojamaflipper returns to familiar Covidiot territory: La-La Land, attempting to construct a conspiracy narrative that might even (if only slightly) embarrass David Icke. Having tried (and failed) to trash Wheeldon’s journalistic output, Oojamaflipper turns towards a new target (or was he always in the frame?) Andrew Feinstein. Not content with endorsing James’ attempt to undermine Feinstein in terms of his educational qualifications, as in the dig about “an established concept in psychology that Andrew Feinstein should be well versed in, thanks to his three psychology degrees”, he goes much further.

Oojamaflipper seizes on Northern Ireland businessman Cecil Hetherington being a (part) owner and director at the Canary, using a screenshot of this, and Hetherington also being a Director of Declassified UK, alongside particulars of Feinstein’s appointment as a Declassified Director including in his case only the date he became one (6/2/25). Oojamaflipper does not show, or mention (it does not suit his narrative) that Hetherington was only appointed to both entities after this date: the Canary 8/8/25 and Declassified 22/9/25. Thus, the likelihood of prior collusive conspiracy between the two is rather undermined, given Feinstein joined Declassified six years earlier and has no formal involvement in the Canary at all. Further facts not suiting a conspiratorial narrative are other 2025 Declassified appointments the same day as Feinstein: Martha Gellhorn prize-winning journalist Iona Craig, CND Vice-President Dr Kate Hudson, Immigration Barrister Taimour Lay, and journalist Richard Norton-Taylor. And not forgetting inspirational Leftist ex-Labour MP Laura Pidcock (14/8/25). We mention these other Directors to show how asinine is Oojamaflipper’s attempt to make something out of Feinstein being a fellow Declassified Board member with Hetherington: but not of course at the Canary.

 

Scene set, we now turn to the kernel of Oojamaflipper’s allegations: “Wheeldon’s scheme to lie about how the different factions operate follows accusations from members who wish to remain anonymous that Wheeldon admitted Andrew Feinstein had offered to pay her to write defamatory articles about Corbyn and his supporters. At a training session preceding a “YP Connections” conference (Sultana-aligned parallel structure being built within Your Party, chaired by Anwarul Khan on 27 September 2025), Feinstein is alleged to have asked Wheeldon to stay behind, and took her to a 2.5 hour lunch where he offered the fledgling reporter money to write a hit piece”.

A few glaringly obvious points about the above:

1. While Wheeldon’s first article on YP was indeed shortly after the 27/9 meeting  (on 2/10), as the above review of her output shows, she has not in any way shape or form lied about YP but done what MSM has signally failed to do: report facts about YP, which is undoubtedly  uncomfortable for the ruling clique. In other words, acted as a proper journalist, not ‘client journalist’ like Megan Kenyon. That is what makes her a target: not for defamatory articles but speaking truth to power.
2. “Accusations from members who wish to remain anonymous” should be treated with the contempt they deserve. Put up or shut up. While Oojamaflipper (Ben Michna) is no longer anonymous, no reason to believe these alleged members exist.
3. Wheeldon may well have gone to lunch with Feinstein: so what? Why not? Worth noting, the only reason the (excellent) YP Connections “parallel structure” came into being is the TM clique have actively prevented official branches forming, so members have had to take things into their own hands.
4. Certainly, Feinstein joining Declassified before Hetherington wouldn’t preclude him acting as a channel to funnel Hetherington’s money to Wheeldon or whoever. For the sake of argument, even if he did, that would not in itself constitute proof of an attempt to undermine YP, given the content of Wheeldon’s articles has been entirely legitimate.
5. The idea anybody should take seriously a supposed claim by anonymous members written up by another person (Oojamaflipper aka Ben Michna) who went to extraordinary lengths to preserve his own anonymity shows what a deluded conspiracy theorist (at best) this fruit loop is. None of this tittle-tattle constitutes proof in any way shape or form: other than of malevolent intent by the accuser.

 

 

FURTHER DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Oojamaflipper (or those directing him) makes the following remark “Over recent months I (and others) have noticed subtle editorial shifts – framing choices, missing context, and a growing emphasis on factional lines. I’m not alleging “capture,” but these changes appear to coincide with the August 2025 restructuring in which Cecil Robert Hetherington, via Ulidia Investments Ltd, acquired a significant shareholding and a board seat”.

Regarding Oojamaflipper/Michna’s claims issues with Canary stories began after Hetherington came on board. What are those stories that bothered him between then and 2/10 (which in itself was anodyne anyway)? No detail given: what a surprise (not). Yet the Canary is virtually a daily publication, and a full 54 days elapsed between Hetherington coming on board and 2/10. If Michna means other stories, why not mention them, given the gravity of his insinuations? The reason, we suggest, is that there were no such stories: so the question arises as to why such a claim was made.

 

There is a possible, and we stress possible, explanation for Michna’s antics, starting just after YP Conference: that his hit-job on Sultana was commissioned by others. A clue, perhaps might be found in this X exchange (shout out to Matthew Walker for unearthing): not only does it show transphobic views (par for the course) but also that Michna is very lukewarm on YP being defiantly anti-Zionist. As he put it “It’s quite obvious we are anti Zionist. That’s why I think this would be self congratulatory rather than have actual utility”. The form of words he uses to defend Zionism might fool the unwary, but not us. He claims “Everyone agrees Israel is a terrorist state, everyone agrees they’re doing a genocide, but let’s just sack off the revolution and take our ball home if not every single person agrees that a religious motivation is the main driver of the genocide, is that where we’re at? Oy vey”[205]. Leaving aside affected revolutionary zeal the key import of this passage is while glibly seeming to accept there is genocide in Gaza, he denies the motivation leading to genocide. But no genocide takes place without motivation, otherwise it would not be genocide. Yet what has happened in Gaza is so clearly genocide anybody pretending it has nothing to do with Zionism is therefore, a genocide denier.  As for transphobic beliefs Michna in his many guises propagates, this may not be because he believes in such (though he may) but the fact that in terms of accelerating divisions within YP, and bush-whacking Sultana, who is far more explicit in expressing anti-Zionist views than Corbyn, the trans issue is ideal. It is undoubtedly a ‘wedge’ issue, generating strong feelings on both sides of the debate: indeed many involved believe it should not even be a matter for debate. On this interpretation, Michna has been virulently transphobic as a cloak to conceal what we suspect might be his real motive: shilling for Zionists.

Virtually Michna’s whole output has been replete with ‘bad faith’ politics, rampant dishonesty and abusive allegations. We draw your attention to what may be coincidence, or something else. Until the 2024 Election somebody called Vanessa Michna was Parliamentary Affairs manager for Labour Friends of Israel, while working for a then Tory MP Bob Neill.  Following the Google-search link to the Register of Members Interests, this information (like other LFI data related to MPs and their staff) has vanished[206].

Michna then links to a set of questions compiled by Nicola James, perhaps devised while she was looking out of the window checking for rain, perhaps during a break from framing her numerous degree certificates….

• the exact shareholding now held by Ulidia Investments Ltd;
• the amount invested;
• any formal or informal influence the new investor has on editorial or staffing decisions;
• why the board considered it appropriate to accept a material investment from someone without a socialist or journalistic track record;
• whether the original worker co-operative model and its decision-making processes remain intact;
• whether there is still a written editorial charter guaranteeing independence from shareholders and directors;
• who now appoints or dismisses editors and signs off commissioning budgets;
• whether any editorial oversight or vetting committee has been created since the merger with Skwawkbox;
• whether there have been any editorial departures or new senior hires since August 2025; and
• who now holds final editorial sign-off for politically sensitive pieces.

Oojamaflipper/Michna (who has never to our knowledge quoted or referenced either the Canary or Skwawkbox) portentously goes on to say “These are straightforward governance questions, not accusations. Many of us value The Canary’s role in the left independent-media ecosystem and simply want reassurance that its editorial independence remains protected.  Clear, factual disclosure on these points would demonstrate the same accountability you demanded of previous directors – and would reassure readers that The Canary and Skwawkbox remain genuinely independent and rooted in the socialist principles that built their audience.”

First point: some questions pertain to matters of commercial confidentiality, so The Canary was well justified in not answering those.

Second, the date of the alleged (and unsubstantiated) ‘concerns’ coincides with when matters started to get heated inside YP. In other words, these questions do not come from an honest place but seek to obtain intelligence on who to pressure in order to censor the Canary.

Third, it is hilarious that James questions Hetherington’s socialist credentials but neither she, nor Corbyn, have any problems with non-socialist MPs in the ‘Independent Alliance’.

Fourth, it is equally risible a TM supporter demanding financial transparency from others: as stated above, it is our firm belief the TM CEC majority want to deny other CEC members access to financial data so as to conceal their own chicanery concerning YP funds.

Fifth, as somebody with spare cash Hetherington is/was certainly on the lookout for media investment opportunities, indicated also by purchasing Reach shares, owning just over 5% as of 24/11/25[207]. He may well, at some point in the future, capitulate to external forces and damage the Canary. But not only is he not a majority shareholder, the fact he has no discernible prior political allegiances at least indicates he has not obviously invested to subvert them. In a way for instance Elon Musk has done with Twitter/X. To make the incremental leap, that the millionaire Hetherington, looking to make a profit, is thereby necessarily pursuing a pro-capitalist agenda to subvert YP is something conspiracy theorists like Oojamaflipper/Michna and indeed Nicola James, might find credible. Those committed to evidence-based research need more. Frederick Engels, a factory owner, bank-rolled Karl Marx after all, and that went quite well…

Oojamaflipper posted an Addendum from Facebook making further claims about both Hetherington and even more so Feinstein. Therefore we can assume Oojamaflipper agrees. The former gets off lightly as somebody who has “no history of political activism or socialism, but strangely appears out of nowhere to back Andrew Feinstein in his GE campaign against Starmer”. Implication though: something sinister: yet you have to ask, in whose interests is it to throw mud at somebody who may well unseat Starmer at the next election? While you ponder that (won’t take long) consider the rest of this Addendum (in bold italics): including my comments on each point (plain text).

Feinstein pushing for Corbyn to be marginalised while Zarah takes a leading role

–Feinstein did not want Corbyn marginalised, but co-leadership with Sultana.

The party going to shit ever since.

–Zarah has been excluded from running YP, so beyond unfair to blame her.

the Feinstein backing millionaire suddenly buying a large stake in a trusted ‘independent’ left news outlet and that outlet turning very pro Zarah and very anti Corbyn’

–Actually, all the Canary has done is report facts: which TM effluent pipes in the media do not. Hence the likes of Oojamaflipper/Nicola James and their script-writers want them silenced.

that same millionaire is now also sitting on the board of declassified with Feinstein as a fellow director.

–As discussed above, as proof of any wrongdoing this is La-La land. And how cowardly that the most libellous abuse is reserved for a no doubt impecunious single mother (Wheeldon) but not the millionaire.

Corbyn successfully sidelined and the party plummeting in the polls as a result, neutralising it as a threat to multi-millionaire businesspeople.

—Beyond preposterous, in fact stark raving loony-tunes, to claim St Jeremy has been sidelined, when TM have done their best to turn the party into a Corbyn-worshipping cult, before during and since their election campaign.

But when you start to join those dots it leaves a picture that is very concerning indeed

–It is, but the concerning picture is in whose interests is it, exactly, to smear Feinstein, The Canary, Declassified and by implication Feinstein’s close associate Paul Holden. Feinstein & Holden, it should be noted, both White South Africans, have done more damage to the Labour Right than anybody on the pre-Corbyn/Corbynist/post-Corbyn Left have ever done, or are likely to. We don’t think you need to join dots, the answer to cui bono is very obvious. And not just the TM functionaries running YP at breakneck speed into the buffers…They clearly have the establishment rattled: no surprise that on 28/3/26 the truly dreadful Laura Kuenssberg gave disgraced Labour MP Josh Simons, who had via Labour Together targeted Holden and Feinstein, a 40 minute soft-soap interview unchallenged, where he made outrageous claims about the pair, with them not having been given right of reply[208].

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATTACK-DOG TWO:JAMES

 As the May elections approach, given the Canary’s ongoing coverage of highly suspect YP candidate selection processes, TM hostility has not dissipated. Prompting this heartfelt X response from Maddison Wheeldon (5/4/26): “I find this so affronting how some on the ‘left’ clearly only want client/PR journalism and not independent media which actually scrutinises ALL POWER, rather than just the ‘enemy’ It’s so incredibly offensive to them to ask a political leader to stick to his promises” [209].  Very offensive to TM: so much so that Nicola James returned to the fray, reviving earlier complaints about the Canary with a Substack article ‘Who Owns The Canary’ (12/4/26)[210] and adding new ones.

Her first target is again Cecil Hetherington, and she finds it deeply sinister the Canary is no longer a workers co-op but a private company, with CEO Steve Topple owning 66% of the shares and Hetherington the rest. While it is certainly time the Canary’s self-description changed, as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Thus, while a change of ownership may lead to a change in political stance, the issue is has it done so in this case, to the detriment of the Canary’s independence as she states? Here is her case: “A businessman from Northman Ireland with no known socialist background backs Feinstein’s election campaign in 2024. The following year he buys into The Canary in August, and joins the Declassified board in September – the same media outlet Feinstein joined in 2019. In the months that follow, The Canary shifts towards Feinstein and Zarah Sultana MP against Jeremy Corbyn and the Independent Alliance MPs. The Canary publishes a one-sided piece based on documents from Feinstein’s allies, defends him by name in its promotional tweet, and frames legitimate governance questions as a smear campaign. Individually, each of these developments may be coincidental. Taken together, they raise legitimate questions about editorial independence that have not been addressed publicly”. The answer as regards the Canary’s output and independence has to be a resounding no, which is what irks James of course. The ‘change’ that has taken place is in Corbyn and his acolytes, who appear to have ditched any socialist project in favour of creating a Stalinist-run personality cult. For example she affects to find it suspicious that Hetherington donated to Feinstein’s campaign to unseat Starmer in 2024, via an organisation called OCISA. She does not reveal OCISA actually stands for ‘Organise Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance’ who were not only supportive of Corbyn but the Peace & Justice Project too[211]. 

The only specific story mentioned in her statement of charge is Steve Topple’s (30/10/25) article on the MOU funds transfer controversy and we strongly suggest reading it. It definitively shows just how dishonest is James and all other TM-inspired media stories on this matter[212]. To be exact, Topple itemises the following:

• 22/8/25 internal advice to YP stating there would need to be a change in MOU ownership too in order for YP to accept the funds
• 29/9/25 MOU Directors offer to transfer funds to YP (acknowledged by Corbyn)
• 7/10/25 YP Treasurer Marion Roberts demands MOU Directors transfer the funds, but retain person liability for costs
• 15/10/25 Corbyn agreed by phone with Feinstein YP would take over MOU: not done
• 17/10/25 MOU send another email to YP offering to transfer the funds, and also contacted the four Independent MPs offering the same: no response from any of them.
• 26/10/25 Sultana agrees to take on MOU funds and liabilities
• 27/10/25 YP issue a statement, despite no communication since 15/10/25 that “over the past month, we have done everything possible to secure the transfer of your membership data. Both Zarah and Jeremy, along with Shockat, Adnan, Ayoub and Iqbal, have made written requests to MOU for the transfer to happen”

Subsequently of course, as discussed above, media hell was unleashed against Sultana and the MOU Directors. With all this in mind, how does James’ attempt to poke the embers stack up? As you might expect, not very well.

• James does not review or refute any factual data above, nor—crucially–does she thereby question the veracity of those emails/reported communications
• She does, however, continue with irrelevant conspiracy theorising about the Canary taking Feinstein’s side. Yet should the Canary, as a news outlet, have not run a story clearly disproving TM clique lies about the MOU fund transfer? Obviously they should have and they duly did. That Feinstein was in a position to provide them with irrefutable evidence to do so is a happy circumstance, not something to be condemned. In fact, he was whistle-blowing by so doing.
• Screenshots of both Driscoll and Feinstein stating the Zarah-launched membership portal was legitimate do not, as she states, prove they were involved in launching it. Indeed the Driscoll one refers to him having contacted Zarah to check, which he would not have needed to do if he had been involved.
• James as before refers to a “detailed rebuttal”. No surprise it has never been seen nor does she use it (unless it be the piss-poor points above) as the Topple article is indeed irrefutable.
• To generate artificial snow around the matter, she reproduces as if evidence of some sort Canary tweets/headlines promoting the article. Pathetic.

Having spectacularly failed to demolish the MOU article James then moves seamlessly on to attacking Maddison Wheeldon over both the ‘Whip’ and Gorton & Denton by-election stories. Nothing new, our analysis of those above still applies. Next, James reposts the earlier questions to the Canary we also discuss above. Adding to them four new ones, our response below each one:

• Why was the workers’ co-operative dissolved without any announcement to the readership that built it? And why does The Canary’s YouTube channel still describe itself as a workers’ co-op?

–Like a consolation goal for a team well beaten, she seems to have a point here, and only here. The descriptors probably need changing.

• Why were serious allegations published before The Canary’s own stated response deadline had passed?

–Hilarious a TM clique supporter complaining about serious allegations being not replied to. What about all the TM-sourced serious media allegations and lies about MOU that have not been rescinded? Equally, given this “detailed rebuttal” has never surfaced, we are of the opinion there wasn’t one. Which would make James a liar.

• Why did a journalist working for The Canary operate inside a partisan political group, take briefings from a politician’s husband, and publish the result as independent journalism?

–This preposterous BS about Wheeldon’s relationship with GL we have dealt with above.

• Why have repeated, specific, good-faith governance questions received no response from the majority shareholder and CEO?

–Simple answer: these are not good-faith governance questions.

Given how poor and evidence-free the above attempted take down of the Canary by Nicola James is, we do not find it surprising she has gone further, given her cultist zeal. James has twice deliberately leaked personal details of the Canary’s Steve Topple and Maddison Wheeldon onto the internet, palpably to facilitate their harassment by others. While doing this makes tactical sense from TM’s Stalinoid perspective[213], such doxxing has potentially resulted in legal action[214]. If it gets that far perhaps she could call somebody who appears clinically deranged like Sam Altman as a defence witness…

 

 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Wheeldon has followed up with another Cri de Coeur showing the pressure is getting to her but she is not giving up: just as well for we suspect some Green Party apologists will soon join TM in gunning for the Canary[215]. We fully anticipate other forces getting involved in attempts to close them down: spurious legal action by the ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ for instance, and the deliberate planting of fake stories to compromise them. There will also be attempts to make supporting the Canary so difficult for Cecil Hetherington that he may not think it worth the bother. We leave you with this thought: the Canary is and will be under sustained attack partly because other outlets–Owen Jones and Novara Media spring immediately to mind–either do not, or do not with such consistency, speak truth to power.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[1]

Corbyn denies endorsing ex-Tories – but it’s still an almighty mess 4/4/26 Willem Moore

[2]

Your Party: The Language of Democracy, the Logic of Control 8/4/26

[3]

On whom see John Goulding ‘Hammer of the Left’ Biteback 2016: unpleasant but necessary reading: an ironic postscript (Goulding died in 2003) by a Labour Right non-entity attacks Corbyn for radicalism.

[4]

www.thecanary.co

[5]

Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire ‘Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn’ Bodley Head London 2020–see REVIEW OF OWEN JONES ‘THIS LAND’ & GABRIEL POGRUND and PATRICK MAGUIRE ‘LEFT OUT’ – Notes From The Borderland

[6]

How Karie Murphy undermines Your Party – by David Miller 21/8/25

[7]

Patrick Maguire & Gabriel Pogrund ‘Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer’ (Bodley Head 2025: £25) Reviewed by Larry O’Hara (published in Labour Briefing April 2025) – Notes From The Borderland

[8]

Owen Jones ‘This Land’ Random House 2020 p.271-6

[9]

‘Left Out’ op. cit. p.158/17 respectively.

[10]

See for example Alan Freeman ‘The Benn Heresy’ Pluto 1982,  CSE London Working Group ‘The Alternative Economic Strategy CSE Books 1980

[11]

Notes From the Borderland Magazine on X: “MEGAN KENYON: 2026 PRAVDA JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR (JUNIOR SECTION) 30.1.26 see also (1) Notes From the Borderland Magazine on X: “MEGAN KENYON & YOUR PARTY: MORE BAD FAITH JOURNALISM by Larry O’Hara 12/12/25 https://t.co/0UdkAU3b2m” / X Yet her https://t.co/JEga5lMU9p” / X

[12]

Jeremy Corbyn attacks Angela Rayner for selling off allotments – BBC News 5/8/25

[13]

[14]

‘Left Out’ p.177

[15]

‘This Land’ p.270

[16]

‘Left Out’ p.262-282/’This Land’ p.271-6

[17]

Political Statement | Your Party last accessed 27.3.26

[18]

(1) Restore Britain statement on the May elections. | LinkedIn 1/4/26

[19]

Independent Report of CEC Proceedings 12/4/26 point 4

[20]

Oisín on X: “Will I be expelled from Your Party for publicly not voting for the so called “endorsed community independent” party? Clarity on this should be issued as a matter of urgency – are they being treated as Your Party candidates (without any democratic mandate) or not? @thisisyourparty” / X 4/4/26

[21]

Archie Woodrow on X: “so Islington Community Independents, which was set up by Corbyn, doesn’t want to join Corbyn’s party, whereas Islington Your Party, does want to join Corbyn’s party, but the party won’t let them & refuses to endorse one of ICI’s candidates because IYP also back them?” / X 8/4/26

[22]

Andrew Reid/Simon Carr ‘The Art of The Impossible: The Inside Story of the Brexit Party’ Biteback Publishing 2023 p.121-123

[23]

We are not here to beg for crumbs off the table. We’re taking the fucking lot. 12/9/25

[24]

Asa Winstanley ‘Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn’ OR Books (New York) 2023: reviewed here:  ‘Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How The Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn’ by Asa Winstanley reviewed by Larry O’Hara OR Books £13.29 (published in Labour Briefing March 2024) – Notes From The Borderland

[25]

See Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall ‘The Cointelpro Papers’ South End Press (Boston) 1990 and Brian Glick ‘War At Home’ South End Press 1989

[26]

Gordon Winter ‘Inside BOSS: South Africa’s Secret Police’ Penguin 1981

[27]

Mandela’s Last Years – pulp(ing) facts | News24 25/7/17

[28]

Bridge text Lobster issue 75

[29]

AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH – Notes From The Borderland and also TURNING UP THE HEAT – Notes From The Borderland

[30]

(2) Sam Gorst on X: “@JasonIoannou Yes, it doesn’t mean I can’t recognise that after the CEC election, the damage and destruction one side is causing. I have voted for elements on both sides of debates, motions etc. But the vitriol and behaviour of Grassroots Left is hateful and hurtful to individuals and the” / X 4/4/26

[31]

Who is open to voting for a new Corbyn-led party? 9/7/25

[32]

Stand-off over £800,000 Your Party funds held by Zarah Sultana – BBC News

[33]

How the Guardian betrayed not only Corbyn but the last vestiges of British democracy 10/8/20

[34]

Corbyn’s new party – is it happening and could it damage Labour? – BBC News 4/7/25

[35]

Could Jeremy Corbyn’s new party shake up politics? – BBC News 25/7/25

[36]

BBC under fresh pressure over extent of Reform UK coverage | BBC | The Guardian 12/9/25

[37]

Green Party Shows Strongest Broadcast Momentum of Any UK Political Party Under New Leader Zack Polanski | Be Broadcast 6/11/25

[38]

Politics Home | Over 100 Green Councillors Sign Letter Backing Zack Polanski’s Leadership Bid 5/6/25

[39]

Corbyn-Sultana party: A new era of left-wing infighting? – New Statesman 8/7/25, Zack Polanski On Trying To Rise From Westminster Margins | HuffPost UK Politics 25/7/25,

[40]

Zack Polanski discusses ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion which was recently blocked at Green Party Spring Conference : r/LabourUK 2/4/26

[41]

Corbyn and Sultana clash over new party membership – BBC News 18/9/25

[42]

Jeremy Corbyn sorry for ‘confusion’ as new party membership launched – BBC News 24/9/25

[43]

MOU Operations leaked emails show Your Party narrative is false 30/10/25

[44]

MOU Operations leaked emails show Your Party narrative is false 30/10/25

[45]

Feuds, boycotts and the birth of Your Party – BBC News 1/12/25

[46]

Inside Jeremy Corbyn’s new party and the battle for leadership | Politics News | Sky News 7/8/25

[47]

Sultana accused by Corbyn allies of encouraging ‘ultra leftists’ to disrupt Your Party conference | Politics News | Sky News 21/11/25

[48]

Your Party hit by new split as Corbyn and Sultana battle for control | Politics News | Sky News 12/1/26

[49]

Your Party to launch legal action against three of its ‘rogue’ founders, sources say | Politics | The Guardian 28/10/25

[50]

Jamie Driscoll on X: “A statement from me, @BethWinterCynon and @andrewfeinstein https://t.co/QG6J6mK8Y0” / X 29/10/25

[51]

Your Party receives ‘small portion’ of withheld supporters’ donations | Politics | The Guardian 13/11/25

[52]

The Crispin Flintoff Show

[53]

The Left Lane | Substack

[54]

Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist – Critical commentary on news in Leicester and beyond

[55]

Your Party: The Language of Democracy, the Logic of Control 8/4/26

[56]

Your Party? Turbulent beginnings for a new left party in Britain — The Democracy Collaborative 14/10/25

[57]

From Supporter to Critic: What I Learned in Your Party UK 26/3/26

[58]

Carla Roberts – Weekly Worker

[59]

Alex Nunns ‘The Candidate’ OR Books 2018, also see his interview in Eagleton op. cit. p.81-97. Perhaps Nunns moonlights on the comedy circuit, in the latter book stating “It’s very hard to see how this new party could be set up without inclusive democratic structures” p.96.

[60]

(5) Facebook (Tariq Ali) 1/12/25

[61]

Left Briefing April/May 2026 p.9, see also by the same author ‘Your Party: whose Party?’ Left Briefing October 2025 p.14-15

[62]

‘We’re back’ by Peter Lush Left Briefing March 2026 p.25. All issues available from www.labourbriefingcooperative.net

[63]

The Left’s Media Missed Your Party’s Founding, And It Shows 1/12/25

[64]

Andrew Marr criticised by Ian Hislop over super injunction 26/4/11

[65]

Inside the battle to lead Your Party – New Statesman 3/12/25

[66]

Unite union hands hotel contract probe to police – BBC News 8/7/22, Serious Fraud Office probe £112m Unite union hotel – BBC News 21/10/24

[67]

Unite releases findings of multiple independent inquiries into historical allegations of corruption and wrongdoing at the union, Len McCluskey took private jet flights arranged by building firm, report claims | Len McCluskey | The Guardian, Ex-union boss Len McCluskey took private jet flights arranged by building firm, report finds – BBC News, Unite hotel builder arranged football flights for ex-union boss | Construction Enquirer News—all 22/7/25, Unite union ‘broke law’ in hotel project scandal that lef… 10/8/25

[68]

interim-report.pdf (Unite/July 2025)

[69]

Reject the Your Party witch-hunt of socialists – Counterfire statement | Counterfire 10/4/26, Your Party: a squandered opportunity | Counterfire 12/4/26

[70]

Jeremy Corbyn says he’s staying. That’s not good enough | Owen Jones | The Guardian 1/3/17

[71]

REVIEW OF OWEN JONES ‘THIS LAND’ & GABRIEL POGRUND and PATRICK MAGUIRE ‘LEFT OUT’ – Notes From The Borderland

[72]

Starmer can succeed, and he deserves our support | Owen Jones | The Guardian 2/4/20

[73]

Oliver Eagleton ‘The Starmer Project’ Verso 2022 p.8-61 covers various cases. The book is reviewed here: Oliver Eagleton: The Starmer Project Verso 2022 £12.99 Reviewed by Larry O’Hara (published in Labour Briefing July 2022) – Notes From The Borderland

[74]

Owen Jones: There should be no immunity for Julian Assange from these allegations | The Independent | The Independent 17/8/12

[75]

See Notes From the Borderland issue 11 2016 p.56-70: available here: NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND – Issue 11 – Notes From The Borderland

[76]

‘Julian Assange, Wikileaks & The Guardian: An Update’ (Verona Silenda) Notes From the Borderland issue 12 2024 p.47: available here: NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND – Issue 12 – Notes From The Borderland

[77]

Eagleton op. cit. p.118-19

[78]

Eagleton op. cit. p.120

[79]

Long-Bailey throws down transparency gauntlet to Starmer with donor declaration – SKWAWKBOX 25/2/20

[80]

View donation – The Electoral Commission

[81]

After Corbyn, UK Labour elects Keir Starmer, Zionist with Jewish wife, as leader | The Times of Israel 5/4/20 reported this

[82]

Labour’s real struggle is not left v right – it is to keep young and minority voters | Owen Jones | The Guardian 2/7/20

[83]

The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza – by Owen Jones 19/12/24

[84]

(8) Video | Facebook Jones/Sultana 2/12/25

[85]

Halifax ‘The Character of a Trimmer’ Oxford University Press 2025

[86]

Why I’m Backing Corbyn’s NEW PARTY Owen Jones 25/7/25

[87]

Your Party’s antics assume a luxury the left does not have: time | Owen Jones | The Guardian 1/12/25

[88]

Your Party’s antics assume a luxury the left does not have: time | Owen Jones | The Guardian 1/12/25

[89]

Your Party Conference: Total Chaos or the Future of Democracy? – YouTube 1/12/25

[90]

2025: What Actually Happened? | Ash & Aaron’s End-Of-Year Round Up | Novara Media filmed 17/12/25, on air 28/12/25

[91]

Is CIA cutout Plan C launching a last-ditch attempt to take over “Your Party”? | Patreon

[92]

Why Your Party is a failure 9/3/26

[93]

Instagram 26/3/26

[94]

The Blueprint for System Change | Ash Sarkar Meets Extinction Rebellion Founder Roger Hallam 30/11/25

[95]

See here: YOUR PARTY STRATEGY: SOME THOUGHTS by Larry O’Hara 24/9/25 – Notes From The Borderland and also here: ROGER HALLAM SHOWS HIS TRUE COLOURS: A NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND EXCLUSIVE – Notes From The Borderland 13/11/25

[96]

Getting Your Party Back on Track — The Many

[97]

Our Platform – Grassroots Left

[98]

GREEN LEFT

[99]

Is Your Party Over? | Novara Media 10/2/26

[100]

Andrew Murray, Force of Opposition — Sidecar 6/8/25, also reproduced in the fascinating book by Oliver Eagleton ‘Your Party: The Return of the Left’ Verso 2025 p.53-67.

[101]

Your Party, their crisis, our hopes dashed? | Morning Star 20/9/25

[102]

Despite the controversies, ‘Your Party’ has great potential – socialists should welcome it | Morning Star 28/11/25

[103]

Morning Star 29/11/25 edition p.13

[104]

One party, two alternative visions: a turning point for the socialist left | Morning Star 15/2/26, https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/manys-vision-democracy-your-party 18/2/26

[105]

Your Party: what kind of socialist party does the British working class actually need in 2026? | Morning Star 16/4/26

[106]

Paul Holden ‘The Fraud’ OR Books 2025 especially p.89-100

[107]

MOU Operations leaked emails show Your Party narrative is false 30/10/25

[108]

MOU Operations leaked emails show Your Party narrative is false 30/10/25

[109]

Your Party have endorsed an ex-Tory for the local elections 13/4/26

[110]

Your Party needs to break the top-down model of politics 28/9/25 Your Party elections and what the results mean for members – Canary 26/2/26

[111]

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/green-party-candidate-warrington-stands-down-after-anti-semitism-claims 3/6/24

[112]

Your Party event brought bottom-up politics into focus 2/10/25

[113]

Your Party event in St Helens beset by multiple problems 17/11/25

[114]

Zarah Sultana leads inspiring Your Party event in Wigan 23/11/25

[115]

Zarah Sultana was talking ’bout a revolution at her Your Party rally 29/11/25

[116]

Your Party conference starts with people being removed by security 29/11/25

[117]

Corbyn now more popular with the public than Rachel Reeves 5/1/26

[118]

James Giles: the real reason for his Your Party conference ban 14/12/25

[119]

Sultana slams ‘spineless’ Starmer over UK-US piracy raid 8/1/26

[120]

Zarah Sultana announces ICO have dropped case – Canary 9/1/26

[121]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2026/01/your-party-advised-to-refer-unauthorised-membership-launch-to-police

[122]

Zarah Sultana’s Your Party membership launch may be ‘criminal’ matter for police, ICO says | Your Party | The Guardian 9/1/26

[123]

New Statesman’s “Serious Criminal Activity” Line on Zarah Sultana Rests Only on Hearsay, Not Confirmed by ICO Spokesperson Substack 11/1/26

[124]

The Fight For Your Party eBook : Barker, Michael : Amazon.co.uk: Books: do get the 5^th edition (March 2026)

[125]

Email from BMA Senior Elections Officer 18/4/26

[126]

Ben Timberley (@BTimberley) / X

[127]

Getting Your Party Back on Track — The Many

[128]

Peace & Justice email to supporters 23/2/26

[129]

Independent Report on 8.3.26 CEC Meeting Point 7

[130]

Alex Fox (@AlexF_YP) / X 31/3/26

[131]

Owen Jones ‘This Land’ Allen Lane 2020 p.123-4

[132]

Politics Home Article | Survival Of ‘Your Party’ At Stake As Leadership Voting Opens 10/2/26

[133]

Corbyn’s slate must win election for Your Party to survive, allies warn – New Statesman 30/1/26

[134]

Contact information for Jeremy Corbyn – MPs and Lords – UK Parliament accessed 9/4/26

[135]

Jeremy Corbyn set to become Your Party parliamentary leader – BBC News 26/2/26

[136]

Your Party under Corbyn to work with Greens on ‘coordinated left-flank offensive’ | Your Party | The Guardian 26/2/26

[137]

The leadership issue may be settled, but Your Party’s struggle for electoral relevance has only just begun | Your Party | The Guardian 26/2/26

[138]

The Your Party committee election was chaos. Why break the habit of a lifetime? | John Crace | The Guardian 26/2/26

[139]

Jeremy Corbyn secures control of Your Party leadership committee 26/2/26

[130]

The House Article | Jeremy Corbyn Officially Elected Parliamentary Leader Of ‘Your Party’ 9/3/26

[141]

Jeremy Corbyn wins Your Party elections – New Statesman 26/2/26

[142]

Jeremy Corbyn Now Controls Your Party. Is That a Good Thing? | Rivkah Brown | Novara Media 26/2/26

[143]

How Team Corybn Forced Out Your Party Scotland 13/4/26

[144]

(1) Niall Christie on X: “All 12 members of the Interim Scottish Executive Committee (ISEC) have also unanimously left their roles and pledged to help form a new party. Full statement from them below. (1/2) https://t.co/DcxHAyf77H” / X 13/4/25

[145]

After Your Party leadership results, time to get the project back on track 26/2/26

[146]

Where next after Your Party failure? 12/3/26

[147]

Your Party have an accountability problem 9/2/26

[148]

Zarah Sultana backs Grassroots Left 13/1/26

[149]

Sultana urges focus on Iranian people 13/1/26

[150]

Zarah Sultana shuts down Corbyn feud rumours 14/1/26

[151]

EXCLUSIVE: Your Party rift deepens 16/1/26

[152]

Zarah Sultana knows how to defeat Reform 5/2/26

[153]

Corbyn accused of undemocratic behaviour over ‘backroom deal’ 10/2/26

[154]

Your Party blocks Sultana group member from oversight committee 10/2/26

[155]

Your Party weaponise Black identity 10/2/26

[156]

Your Party elections and what the results mean for members – Canary 26/2/26

[157]

Your Party members are ashamed and disappointed in its leaders 23/3/26, Your Party: Corbyn’s local election paralysis benefits the far-right 24/3/26, Your Party goes missing as local elections approach 27/3/26, Green Party racism under spotlight in shock letter 1/4/26,  Zionism is Racism motion failed but will Polanski capitulate? 2/4/26, Your Party has a problem with left-wing bigots 8/4/26

[158]

Who Runs Your Party? Why the Answer Matters More Than You think 29/3/26

[159]

Does Your Party still matter? – New Statesman 14/3/26

[160]

The Canary sets online record in July to overtake Spectator and Economist [PRESS RELEASE] – Canary 19/6/22

[161]

Anushka Asthana ‘Taken As Red’ Harper North 2024 p.66: a book reviewed here: Anushka Asthana ‘Taken As Red’ Harper North 2024 £22 reviewed by Larry O’Hara – Notes From The Borderland

[162]

thecanary.co Traffic Analytics, Ranking & Audience [February 2026] | Similarweb accessed 17/3/26

[163]

Canary on X: “The Canary is changing. We’re angry. You’re angry. The time to be polite is over because it’s OK to be angry. From now on we will be taking direct action alongside protest groups. We’ll be the frontline. But we need your help. Please join us https://t.co/fz2uyuNihd CW: violence: https://t.co/ytsOWKSDEy” / X 17/4/25

[164]

Reach PLC – Holdings in Company accessed 17/3/26

[165]

Andrew Feinstein on X: “Hi For what it’s worth, I am not a member of YP. Even though I was very involved in the initial discussions I eventually never actually joined as a consequence of the factionalism & a number of other issues. I am working locally in Camden with the Camden Peoples Alliance. We have” / X 15/3/26

[166]

ANDREW FEINSTEIN SPEAKS ABOUT YOUR PARTY 22/10/25

[167]

(10) Alan Gibbons – I don’t like the idea of socialists washing their… | Facebook 15/3/26

[168]

Genocide is a war crime, not a diagnosis: Questions for Andrew Feinstein 14/2/26

[169]

https://shadowworldinvestigations.org

[170]

Mark Curtis ‘Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion With Radical Islam’ Serpent’s Tail 2018

[171]

Similarweb Declassified UK data for February 2026

[172]

Exclusive: Labour right linked to campaign to shut down The Canary – Canary 2/12/20

[173]

REVEALED: The UK’s largest intelligence agency is infiltrating British schools 2/6/20, and then Exclusive: Declassified UK blacklisted by GCHQ, Britain’s largest intelligence agency 1/12/20

[174]

Why does the Guardian write so many puff pieces on G.C.H.Q? 8/3/24, also How UK security agencies use telecoms firms to spy on us 18/8/25

[175]

Israel lobby funded half of Keir Starmer’s cabinet 9/7/24

[176]

Labour bars investigative journalist from party conference 20/9/24

[177]

We asked Starmer’s trade minister why he hid Israel lobby links 11/3/26

[178]

Labour Friends of Israel reported to election watchdog 28/1/26

[179]

The Fraud on X: “PAUL HOLDEN STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO INTERVIEW WITH JOSH SIMONS ON BBC NEWSCAST Yesterday, BBC Newscast published a lengthy, forty-minute interview with former Cabinet Minister Josh Simons MP. The interview addressed how Simons, as a director of @LabourTogether, had appointed a” / X 29/3/26

[180]

Counter-terror cops raid home of anti-Israel activist Asa Winstanley – Jewish News 18/10/24, Met Police reportedly raid home and seize devices of anti-Zionist journalist Asa Winstanley – The Jewish Chronicle – The Jewish Chronicle 19/10/24

[181]

I’ll defend Allison Pearson’s right to be obnoxious – as she should defend mine | Kenan Malik | The Guardian 24/11/25

[182]

British police seize electronic devices in raid on journalist Asa Winstanley’s home – Committee to Protect Journalists 29/10/24, Journalist Asa Winstanley wins Old Bailey ruling against unlawful police raid | Bindmans, Raid on Asa Winstanley’s home deemed unlawful by UK court | Middle East Eye 30/5/25, Police raid on journalist Asa Winstanley’s home ruled unlawful | Morning Star (Elizabeth Short) 30/5/25

[183]

Essex Police cleared in Allison Pearson social media case – BBC News 6/3/25, Allison Pearson sues police chief over social media investigation 24/3/26

[184]

Allison Pearson’s ‘racist’ tweet is at centre of Telegraph’s row with police | Telegraph Media Group | The Guardian 15/11/24  What is the Allison Pearson ‘racist’ tweet incident all about? | Police | The Guardian 17/11/24, Anatomy of a non-scandal: the defence of Allison Pearson reveals how ‘free speech’ has been weaponised | Jane Martinson | The Guardian 20/11/24, Police correctly investigated Allison Pearson’s alleged racism, review finds | Police | The Guardian 6/3/25

[185]

Exposed: The Canary Lies for Sultana Faction 3/3/26

[186]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB7vy4nG9sA 2/12/25

[187]

Zohran Mamdani’s Full Victory Speech, November 4th, 2025

[188]

Agent Sultana Has Achieved Her Brief – Skidrowradio 2/12/25

[189]

Open letter to Tom Watson: Stop claiming to speak for us on Brexit | Morning Star 28/6/19

[190]

Weekly Worker – “Socialist” Stooges? – Skidrowradio 10/1/26

[191]

ooj (@skidrowradio.bsky.social) — Bluesky

[192]

on the mic at the vaxbus 9/5/21

[193]

UK General Election 2024 Autopsy 5/7/24

[194]

Exposed: The Canary Lies for Sultana Faction 3/3/26

[195]

Inacio Vieira on X: “@NAJ562 The event was organised by Cambridge members, not YP nor the @Grassroots_Left campaign. Zarah, Riccardo and Solma were guests and were not consulted on the decision to bar anyone. In fact, they spoke against it. See the full video of the interaction with no misleading edits https://t.co/dGDvTTSAFV” / X

[196]

Corbyn’s suffocating regime – Weekly Worker 12/3/26, Funeral games – Weekly Worker 16/4/26

[197]

Setting the Record Straight on Your Party’s First Official CEC Meeting 11/3/26

[197]

Code of Conduct passed at CEC 22/3/26: as outlined in the Full CEC Report from Independent Members. Highlights (lowlights) being

• Public criticism of staff is prohibited
• To not publicly disclose details of CEC meetings before the Chair’s report is published…within 48 hours
• Public dissent from CEC decisions must be reasonable and not unduly undermine the integrity of the party
• Disclaimers stating comments are made in a personal capacity would not be sufficient
• Confidential information must not be disclosed including internal discussions, member data, legal, financial, staffing, and strategic planning.
• Any alleged breaches of this code may be subject to investigation through a process determined by Party Officers
• The expectation of confidentiality “continues during and after a member’s term on the CEC. Improper disclosures after a member’s term on the CEC may result in further action from the party, internal or external to its own procedures”.

[199]

Ibid. p.5-6

[200]

docs.google.com/document/d/1-2mrEysRPK-.↩︎

[201]

ASSEMBLE/DISSEMBLE: THE YOUR PARTY NORWICH ASSEMBLY 19/10/25 by Larry O’Hara 21/10/25 – Notes From The Borderland

[202]

CEC Candidate Pledges — The Democratic Bloc

[203]

Michael Barker ‘The Fight For Your Party’ Hextall Press March 2026 p.433

[204]

Zarah Sultana knows how to defeat Reform 5/2/26

[205]

(3) Matthew Walker on X: “Terfs 🤝 Zionists 🤝 Landlords This is Your Party. https://t.co/X7e7AbiceI” / X 14/4/26

[206]

vanessa michna labour friends of israel – Google Search last accessed 14/4/26

[207]

Reach PLC – Holdings in Company accessed 17/3/26

[208]

The Fraud on X: “PAUL HOLDEN STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO INTERVIEW WITH JOSH SIMONS ON BBC NEWSCAST Yesterday, BBC Newscast published a lengthy, forty-minute interview with former Cabinet Minister Josh Simons MP. The interview addressed how Simons, as a director of @LabourTogether, had appointed a” / X 29/3/26

[209]

Maddison Wheeldon on X: “I find this so affronting how some on the ‘left’ clearly only want client/PR journalism and not independent media which actually scrutinises ALL POWER, rather than just the ‘enemy’ It’s so incredibly offensive to them to ask a political leader to stick to his promises when” / X 5/4/26

[210]

Who Owns The Canary? – Nicola James 12/4/26

[211]

The Plan To Unseat Starmer – OCISA accessed 19/4/26

[212]

MOU Operations leaked emails show Your Party narrative is false 30/10/25

[213]

Ani Says on X: “Seems that some your party shrills are a little upset with the Canary UK. Nicola James leaked the numbers of a canary journalist and the CEO online and left it up for four days before making an apology. This entitled behaviour is wholly unacceptable and must be called out. No https://t.co/4QlFLGEjfJ” / X 15/4/26

[214]

Nicola Jeffery on X: “You didn’t do it once you did it twice, and another member of staffs personal number. This has gone too far Nicola and an apology is not going to cut it. Your pathetic attempt to discredit the canary has put me, my partner Steve and my son in danger. This is for lawyers now!!!” / X 14/4/26

[215]

Zionism and bad actors have a sinister grip on the Left 16/4/26