Jeremy Corbyn faced a blow on Sunday as his new party voted in favour of collective leadership at their inaugural conference.
As part of the party’s first conference in Liverpool, members were able to vote on party issues, including the party name and leadership style.
This gave members the option to have a single elected leader - in this case, Jeremy Corbyn - or to have a collective leadership model which would put a committee of members in charge.
The results came in, and they were close, but ultimately, members voted for a committee to run the party.
The new model was supported by 51.6% of over 9,000 members who voted, marking a setback for the former Labour leader.
Zarah Sultana, who had been vocal in her support for co-leadership, had been blocked from consideration by other party members.
When the result came in, Ms Sultana said she had “fought for maximum member democracy since day one”, calling the verdict “exciting”.
She said: “Together, we’re building a new socialist party – radically democratic and powered by a mass movement. This party will be led by its members, not MPs.”
According to a party spokesperson, the vote demonstrated that the party is “doing politics differently: from the bottom up, not the top down”.
This comes after the beginning of the conference was marked by tumult, when members who were also said to belong to the Socialist Workers Party were barred.
In response to the explusion, a horrified Ms Sultana accused the party of orchestrating a “witch hunt”, demanded the members be reinstated and refused to enter the first day of the party’s conference.
That same day, Mr Corbyn had called for “unity”.
Ms Sultana attended the conference on Sunday and began her speech by attacking anonymous bosses “at the top” of the party.
She complained that the removal of members was “unacceptable” and “an attack on members and this movement”.
She added that the expulsion of a Muslim woman from the conference should “shame any party that claims to stand for equality and justice”.
She added: “These actions come straight out of the Labour right’s handbook, the same playbook we have all lived through for years – the witch hunts, the smears, the intimidation, the bullying, the legal threats and the leaks to the Murdoch press.
“Let me be absolutely clear, the members will not stand for this, the movement will not stand for this, and I will not stand for this.”
Ms Sultana acknowledged the roadbumps in the inauguration of the party and offered to accept responsibility for some of it. She insisted members must “get better at working with each other”.
As part of her vision for the future of the party, Ms Sultana called for the total severing of diplomatic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza, the nationalization of water and energy, and the complete abolition of the monarchy.
She said that if the left did not work to win the “global fight”, the political balance of the world would “give way to fascism and people who look like me will be imprisoned in tents and deported to war zones”.
