Row over Laura Álvarez tweet sums up Your Party’s accountability deficit

Laura Álvarez has sparked debate online within Your Party following a comment about a candidate not aligning with Jeremy Corbyn’s slate. And the row has helped highlight the urgent need for both transparency and respectful debate in the party.

Álvarez, who married Corbyn in 2012, kept a low profile while Corbyn was Labour leader. But she has spoken a lot about Your Party during its founding process, particularly in support of Corbyn’s The Many slate in the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections.

Your Party public spat

The Grassroots Left slate aligns with Zarah Sultana’s vision for Your Party. And Álvarez suggested that a candidate for this slate was “unknown in the community” of Islington.

This was apparently a reference to Anahita Zardoshti, the “founder and chair of Your Party’s Islington proto-branch”. Zardoshti came second in the endorsement phase of the CEC election:

Who’s unknown, @LauraAlvarezJC? If you’re gonna have a dig at Anahita at least have the good grace to name her.

I’d say the number of endorsements largely speaks for itself as for whether she is ‘unknown’… https://t.co/fjXGTSTs49 pic.twitter.com/ZuOLvqW9Wk

— Cllr James Giles (@JamesGilesRBK) February 8, 2026

Just a bit rude to claim you don’t know a person when you voted for them to be a council candidate with @IslingtonIndep and invited them to your Christmas party.

Here’s a pic of me and @Ana_Zardoshti at your Christmas party with Jeremy to help jog your memory https://t.co/0P0UnoEBE7 pic.twitter.com/y9tcuuPRIK

— Nathaniel (@NathanielYPI) February 8, 2026

Councillor James Giles, a Sultana ally, questioned Álvarez’s public comment. But Álvarez responded by saying:

I told you to never contact me again

Laura your ad hominem attacks on me, now on Anahita and the rest of the movement need to stop. And on the other items – I think we all know what happened.

The only thing I did on July 3rd was democratically vote on whether we wanted a sole leadership of Jeremy Corbyn or a…

— Cllr James Giles (@JamesGilesRBK) February 8, 2026

What followed was a number of comments asking Giles not to question Álvarez. But in the interests of transparency, it seems perfectly acceptable to scrutinise personal comments suggesting we should doubt candidates’ role in their community.

No one in the public arena should ever be beyond scrutiny

The establishment smear campaign against the left that intensified under Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party left deep scars. It left distrust, anger, and defensiveness. And it left pain.

However, 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.

There are genuine critiques we could make about everyone. And we don’t need to support a specific faction in order to believe that. There needs to be open, respectful debate. Because members agree on most things, and it should be easy to reach comradely agreements on the other areas.

We absolutely should be asking questions about:

• The diversity within the pool of CEC candidates.
• How backroom deals have become too common.
• The questionable organisation of hustings and oversight of the election process.
• How people show up and challenge people they disagree with online, without falling into personal attacks.
• The lack of a level playing field in terms of data control.
• The potential for online misrepresentation of slates’ positions.
• What candidates have had to agree to in order to belong to a particular slate.
• How to bridge cultural, age, and class divides to bring people together.
• How to replace the struggle for power and control at the top with community empowerment.

There is a real buzz on the ground about what Your Party could become. People know what they want. And as the statistics show pretty clearly, that isn’t factional infighting and public spats. Because there are hundreds of thousands of people who initially expressed interest but have so far stayed away.

The Greens have grown massively under Zack Polanski because there’s a clear direction of travel, and there’s a willingness to work together with all progressives. If Your Party genuinely wants to grow into a meaningful movement for change, it could learn a lot from the Greens right now.

Featured image via the Canary