Corbyn and Sultana’s fledgling party has been marred by false starts and squabbling. But spending time with its activists, I’ve seen signs of a refreshing challenge to stale mainstream politics
It’s not every day that Jeremy Corbyn and some of his closest comrades are described as “the right” in a political argument. But I first heard them given that potentially lethal label – for socialists, at least – shortly after arriving at Your Party’s acrimonious founding conference in Liverpool last Sunday.
The young man who used the words did not seem to be one of the hardbitten leftwing fanatics who had taken over the party, according to most of the press. He was attending his first political conference and enjoying it immensely. Which faction did he think was ahead, I asked, in the weekend’s maze of votes and debates? “Not the Corbynists,” he said with a grin. “But us – the left!”
Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
