Picture – Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana at a recent gathering. Picture credit: Babak Fakhamzadeh
A core member of Glasgow’s new political party says that their priorities lie with the Scottish people, and that they are committed to being a fully autonomous branch even if that means disagreeing with the group’s headquarters in London.
David Lees was speaking after the launch of the new ‘Your Party’ last week, and ahead of their party gathering last night (Friday 5th September).
The Glasgow branch was set up following the birth of the main national party that was recently started by co-founders Zarah Sultana and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Your Party Glasgow hopes to be an autonomous branch, meaning they can truly focus on the needs of the people in Glasgow locally and nationally.
David highlighted that both Corbyn and Sultana have said they would ‘imagine and support’ full autonomy for the Scottish and Welsh branches, however agrees that there needs to be clarification on how this autonomy would reflect in Westminster decision making.
“It’ll be interesting to know whether they understand ‘regions’ to be Scotland and Wales, and they’ll want England to represent the UK or whether they mean Scotland, England and Wales on equal footing”.
The group is still in the early stages, with David stating they are aligning more with being a ‘movement’ rather than a ‘party’ at the minute. The main aim for the branch is to “get people in a room and work out what are the priorities for the people of Glasgow”.
David revealed the party currently doesn’t have any individual candidates.
He admits that: “It would be pre-emptive to talk about policies and candidate elections but some degree of structure will need to be designed at a more institutional level”.
Regarding concerns about splitting a left vote at the next Holyrood elections, David stated: “The honest answer would be of course everyone’s really scared of that and I don’t think they’ll be anyone who’s pig-headed enough to proceed if it doesn’t feel like there’s a consensus”.
He emphasised the hope that left-wing parties within Scotland can collaborate, and that it may involve parties taking concessions in order to support a bigger aim.
Expressing concerns about the potential of The Reform Party Scotland gaining seats David stated: “The absolute priority is making sure we do not get a fascist government at the next election, and I think across the board people (of the left) will need to put their grievances aside.”
David also highlighted Your Party has been formed as they feel that the people of Glasgow’s concerns need to be listened to openly, and approached open-heartedly to ensure that the needs of Scottish people are being met.
“If we want to turn politics on its head, it’ll be meeting the needs of the many rather than serving the interests of the few.”
David, who works at Galgeal, which is a community based organisation in Glasgow, said his own work highlights the importance of community and appreciating traditional Scottish culture, as well as others.
He says that at the heart of Scottishness, and one of the pillars of Scottish culture is about welcome.
“For me personally, I think we need to focus on the positive in welcomes, and the beauty in welcomes”.
David believes that there is no strong counter to the rise of right-wing politics at the moment, and ‘Your Party’ hopes to be the party that can counter that. David highlighted he doesn’t think left parties speak enough about their own aims, which ‘Your Party’ hope to do
“I think the left are very good at talking about what they are against, and not so good at what they are actually for. I think it would be good to talk about what we are actually for”.
The branch says it already has a good deal of interest in Scotland with the core group currently sitting with around 400 people, and over 40,000 sign-ups in Scotland to pledge support. David described the support of the Glasgow branch to be ‘snowballing’ and they are excited to see how this develops.
The current sign up count stands at 700,000 across the UK, showing the amount of support garnered so far.
The gathering last night marked the start of Your Party Glasgow’s mission to unite the left and build up on the road to the Holyrood elections next May.
