Written by Jack Baker
On Friday 31st October, students met for the inaugural meeting of LSE’s Your Party branch. Students from various left-wing associations, including the LSESU Communist Society and LSESU Students for Justice in Palestine, met to discuss strategy, policies and their approach to revitalising the student movement.
Your Party, as it is currently named, is a new left-wing party founded by prominent figures of the British left, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Following their announcement earlier this year, self-organised local groups have been formed throughout the UK, such as the LSE Your Party group.
The inaugural meeting was run without a formal leadership structure, with an emphasis on self-organising within the student body. The focus of the meeting was on democratically discussing the national party’s founding statement, as well as laying the groundwork for the year ahead.
Students talked critically about Your Party nationally, as well as their optimism for an authentic class-based party. Many expressed discontent over the “lack of unity” that has left many feeling “extremely disheartened”.
Following the unilateral launch of a national membership portal, Sultana accused Corbyn and other left-wing MPs of operating a ‘sexist boys-club’ and ‘excluding’ her from decision making processes. This resulted in Corbyn and his allies pursuing legal action against Sultana, before the two made amends. However a conflict over access to membership funds is still ongoing within the fledgling group.
Despite this, the prevailing hope was that Your Party at LSE would “bring together the multiple forms of student activist groups at LSE” who have otherwise become “siloed without a central group to work together”, an unnamed student said.
Tarik A, President of the LSESU Communist Society, felt that students were “using this historic opportunity to organise for change in our own locale.” In his view they were “relating a mass political movement” in the form of Your Party “to our own situation on campus.”
Monty, who led the session but who holds no formal leadership role, echoed Tarik’s words, stating that they were “using it as an opportunity to unify and build a mass movement.” He felt they needed to ensure that Your Party both nationally and locally “met the needs of the people” when it comes to left-wing economic policy and presenting an alternative to the neoliberal order.
Left-wing student activism has long been an aspect of life at LSE. In the 1960s, anti-apartheid activist Marshall Bloom led widespread protests against the appointment of Sir Walter Adams as director due to his previous role in racially segregated Rhodesia. More recently, in 2024 students occupied the Marshall Building in an attempt to force LSE to divest from its investments in Israeli arms and fossil fuels.
Students hoped to carry on this “rich tradition” and act as a new home for left-wing students. Prior to the group’s formation, the Labour Society and Communist Society were the only active left-wing societies at LSE, with the Greens defunct since last year.
When asked about the differences between Your Party and the Greens, one student expressed concern that the Greens “were not a class-based party”, whereas Your Party would be. The national party has yet to formally agree on policy, with this planned for the national conference happening in late November.
