Feinstein, Driscoll, Winter: ‘disappointment’ over Your Party feud but say donations are secure
Former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein, former MP Beth Winter and ex-Tyneside mayor Jamie Driscoll, the directors of MOU Operations Ltd – the firm set up to secure and manage donations to Your Party – have issued a statement expressing their ‘incredible’ disappointment in the ‘leadership fallout‘ at the top of the new (but not yet official) party – but assuring those who have donated to it that their money is secure and being handled safely and that refunds will be issued to those who want them.
Your Party: the chaos continues
The confusion – and dismay – arose after Zarah Sultana’s email inviting Your Party supporters to join as members, followed by a statement from Jeremy Corbyn and other independent MPs disowning it, telling supporters not to use the joining link and threatening legal action, a situation that has led to widespread disgust among the party’s left-wing base.
In a statement, Feinstein, Winter and Driscoll said they will not comment on the Corbyn-Sultana dispute, but said they have been trying to mediate in it and are not taking sides, but are ‘incredibly disappointed’ in the course of events:
We are incredibly disappointed to see the leadership fallout in Your Party. But we want to assure you that your donations are safe.
MOU Operations Ltd was set up before the launch of Your Party’s website went live on the 24th of July. It was approved by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to be the custodian of the donations. All the donations encouraged by both Zarah and Jeremy, or anyone else, went into this bank account, with their approval. The recent email launching a membership system uses exactly the same payment system, and goes into the same bank account.
We will not comment on the dispute between Jeremy and Zarah about who should or should not send emails. That email system is not owned or controlled by MOU Operations Ltd. We will speak to Jeremy and Zarah and make sure the mechanism for any refunds is shared with you.
As the directors of MOU Operations Ltd, our duty and loyalty is to the members and supporters who have signed up and donated. We will not take sides between Jeremy and Zarah. We will act only in your interests, to deliver the project you signed up for. We want to see this project succeed; it is bigger than anyone involved. This is a fast moving situation, and we hope a resolution can be found.
We take our legal, moral and fiduciary duties extremely seriously. We want to assure you that we have taken no
payment of any kind. We have not been involved in running the project since its launch in July. We are simply custodians of the money. Neither Zarah nor Jeremy have received any money from MOU Operations Ltd, nor have they ever asked to.In the spirit of openness, we have to disclose that we have tried to mediate between Jeremy and Zarah for some weeks now. We have raised concerns about the breakdown of trust, poor communication, inadequate governance and a lack of transparency. In blunt terms, we demanded a meeting to get it sorted. One side agreed, the other has not responded despite multiple attempts.
We are as exasperated as you are. We have been inundated with messages asking us to help find a solution, which we continue to do. Hundreds of thousands of people see the need for a new kind of politics. They want a party that will build from the grassroots up. One that is truly democratic in practice as well as in principle, and gives the hope for a better Britain and a better world. We share that hope.
Jamie Driscoll
Beth Winter
Andrew Feinstein
Directors of MOU Operations Ltd
Featured image via the Canary
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The best prediction of future behaviour is past behaviour. Einstein defined insanity as keeping doing the same time expecting different results.
My educated guess is that Jeremy would re-join the Labour Party would he be offered the opportunity to return. The 5 independent MPs win their seats on a single issue: stop the genocide in Gaza. One of them won his seat against Claudia Webbe, another won his against Craig Murray. Hence, at least these two socialists, they are not.
Corbyn always deferred to the PLP and to the Party machine, rather than fight for the membership that supported him to the hill. For example Corbyn renegade on open selections even when Unite was willing to vote in favour. Corbyn also allowed the witch hunt of his supporters of trumped charges of antisemitism and he himself bended backwards to placate the Zionist. Corbyn through Chris Williamson under the proverbial bus. Hence, why or why Sultana, Driscoll and others expected any different?
Thus, Your Party is dead before it has even started. I signed for it and even donated but, now although appreciating the efforts of Driscoll, Winter and Feinstein, I know that it isn’t going to work because, nobody sane enough is going to vote for a Party that even before is launch is creating negative headlines due to infighting.
The only solution I see to stop Reform in its tracks, is for Sultana, Driscoll, Feinstein, Winter and others to join the Green Party and establish a relationship similar to that between the Labour Party and the Co-Operative Party, and leave the 5 independent MPs to remain independent.
I agree to an extent – Corbyn seems unable to leave the Labour Party behind, despite how it treated him. What would happen if Starmer decided to allow him back ? Would he capitulate, endorse Starmer and throw us all under the bus ?
I’d like to hope not … but I honestly couldn’t be certain.
The same thing with his inability to state an anti-zionist stance – why ? They’ve already smeared him as an anti-semite, what does he have to lose ? And does he really still think appeasement will work ?
But … this is supposed to be OUR party, not Corbyn’s. It can (and I hope will) still move ahead, even without him.
He most likely wont stand at the next general election anyway, and we should be considering OUR future, not his past (which belongs to Labour anyway).
I’ve little faith in the Greens, they seem to be to be aspiring to be the new Lib Dems. I think Your Party is our best bet, but for gods sake – lets get on with it, eh ? This continual stalling does no favours, and you can see the frustration in Sultana’s actions.
Jeremy – either piss or get off the pot.
Still trying with the division I see…
Maria Vazquez, you hit the nail square on its head. Your closing statement needs repeating.
‘The only solution I see to stop Reform in its tracks, is for Sultana, Driscoll, Feinstein, Winter and others to join the Green Party and establish a relationship similar to that between the Labour Party and the Co-Operative Party, and leave the 5 independent MPs to remain independent.’
Well said, Maria.
I have waited all my life for a socialist party based in the working class to be formed , free of compromising reformists and Leninist dogmatists or vanguardism. I have never found one until my hopes were lifted by Your Party and the mass movement around Palestinian Freedom, Climate Change and to a lesser degree the anti fascist movement which is still sadly a movement of only the commited and liberal left.
Your Parfy gave the hope to unite all three and others and break out of the middle class left ghetto we have been in for decades and return to mass class politics of the distant past.
The Palestinian movment is still a one issue movement who inexplicably did not mobilise more than a few dozen at most for the anti Trump march along with barely a handful of trade unions. We were all outnumbered by the liberals of Amnesty. Similarly the march against Robinson was the middle class left who happly danced while young comrades were battling at the end of Whitehall to stop the fascist invading and attacking everyone Only the arrival of police horse saved them and the dancers from being overwhelmed. The working class were on the other side of the barricades as they have been for decades. Again although Robinsons mob are zionist, anti gay and trans, anti trade union, climate change deniers and sexist, addressed by Christian fundamentalists, none of these groups which cancall call out tens of thousands on their single issue marches bothered to oppose the fascists and neither did the Corbyn Sultana leadership campaign for a united front demonstration which could form the basis of the new party. Too busy fighting each other for control to bother.
Your Party whose aim was to unite the struggles, turn to the working class, to unite the fight against both the right and reformist left was the hope of decades. Hundreds of thousands signed up, groups were formed, people even talked about it at work. We were told it was a bottom up party unlike the others and then – the truth – it was not unlike the others. Egos were put before principles,personal ambitions before class and bureacratic manouvres before debate and agreement and the ultimate horror, legal threats between those supposed to be the leadership responsible for organising the formation of the party based on unity!
I cannot take sides. Both the groups around Corbyn and Sultana have broken our trust. I cannot truthfully say I can trust either of them any more. Unless they can work together we are better off without them. Corbyn is soon to be my age. That is not an advantage and his ideology was formed in the back rooms of trade unons and his brilliant campaigning but to run a mass party ? Too be honest a great campaingner but no organiser and seeing four businessmen MPs as his closest allies is not a great advert for a socialist, whatever their views of Palestine. He would make a great president but I doubt his ego would allow it. Similarly Sultana’s lack of respect for democratic procedure and arrogance, like when she lied claiming her and Corbyn were forming the party, without his agreement, and now lying a second time when sending out the membership forms without explanation of the circumstances or approval of any others in the so called leadership of Your Parrty lessens any trust we had in her as much as we may admre her commitment.
Maybe it would beneft them and us if both took a step back and allowed the membership campaign and conference to be orgaised by others. They can be involved as delegates and stand for leading positions but neither should be allowed to assume they are the leaders of more than their own faction We choose our leaders or we are no different to those we wish to replace.
We must not let this opportunity be destroyed fby factionalism personal ambition and sheet idiocy . If this fails the only people who gain will be the far right and both Corbyn and Sultana will have to live with that for their short or long lives and the ostracism of any responsible socialist who puts class before personal ambition. If we are socialists no leader should be irreplaceable
“Feinstein said the donations are secure.”
They weren’t donations, they were party subs. What is happening to them now that Corbyn has relaunched the membership drive through another portal? Will refunds be offered willingly with a statement, or will last week’s so-called members have to claim their money back through their banks’ dispute processes?