Ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana has accused Jeremy Corbyn of overseeing a “sexist boys’ club” locking women out of the founding of a new left-wing party the pair announced earlier this year.<\/p>\n
In a statement on social media,<\/a> Sultana said she had been sidelined by other members of the party’s working group – despite an agreement that she and Corbyn would jointly authorise key steps.<\/p>\n He comments come after Your Party supporters got an email on Tuesday offering \u00a355 memberships only for Corbyn to later dismisses it as “unauthorised” – telling supporters he was seeking legal advice.<\/p>\n Sultana said she had launched the membership website “in line with the road map” set out by the party officials.<\/p>\n Before her statement, Sultana had been posting on social media throughout the morning encouraging people to sign up at cost of \u00a355 for full membership.<\/p>\n Sultana had claimed more than 20,000 people had signed up – meaning the new party could have raised more than \u00a31m in a single morning. <\/p>\n In her statement she said: “My sole motivation has been to safeguard the grassroots involvement that is essential to building this party. <\/p>\n “Unfortunately, I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely. <\/p>\n “They have refused to allow any other women with voting rights on the Working Group, blocking the gender-balanced committee that both Jeremy and I signed up to.”<\/p>\n Before Sultana’s comments, Corbyn put out a conflicting statement signed by Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam – members of the Independent Alliance of MPs who are founding the new party. Sultana’s name was conspicuously missing from the list.<\/p>\n The statement supporters on Wednesday morning that an “unauthorised email” had been sent promoting a membership portal under a new domain name.<\/p>\n They urged backers to ignore the message and cancel any direct debits that may have been set up.<\/p>\n Sultana defended her decision to set up the membership portal, insisting it was “in line with the roadmap set out to members on Monday and is a safe, secure, legitimate portal for the party”.<\/p>\n She claimed she had set up the site to allow supporters to “continue to engage and organise”, and that membership funds were held by a company set up by the party to safeguard money until November’s founding conference.<\/p>\n Sultana also went on to raise concerns that long-time Corbyn ally Karie Murphy and her associates had been handed “sole financial control of members’ money and sole constitutional control over our conference”.<\/p>\n She called for Corbyn to publish all party structures arguing only transparency would “restore hope for our members, and ensure nothing like this can ever happen again”.<\/p>\n “This party is bigger than any one person,” she said, “and we owe it to the movement to uphold its democratic and socialist foundations.”<\/p>\n The row is the latest falling out at the top of the new group that has yet to be named<\/a> or hold an annual conference. <\/p>\n