By Kate Nicholson

Copyright huffingtonpost

Zarah Sultana has accused her colleagues looking to set up a new left-wing group known as “Your Party” of creating a “sexist boys’ club”.

The organisation – which is yet to be named or formally set up as a political party – was announced in August by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MP Zarah Sultana, who now sit as independents.

After a huge amount of public interest and allegedly hundreds of thousands of sign-ups, they were trying to work with MPs who were elected as independents, Iqbal Mohamed, Adnan Hussain, Shockat Adam and Ayoub Khan, to create a new party.

However, it seems to have already fallen apart.

The struggles emerged at around 11am, when Your Party sent an email to followers saying: “Our membership portal is now open.”

It invited the public to formally become paid-up members of the group, by spending either £5 a month or £55 a year – although concessionary memberships were available.

Sultana soon declared that 20,000 people had signed up within just a short period.

But four hours later, Your Party issued a statement on X, warning that “an unauthorised email” had contacted all supporters with “details of a supposed membership portal hosted in a new domain name”.

“Legal advice is being taken. That email should be ignored by all supporters. If any direct debits have been set up, they should be immediately cancelled,” it read.

The statement said the six MPs involved with the group agreed on August 1 that “they would be accountable for the foundation process for the new party, leading to an inaugural democratic conference in the Autumn”.

It added that another email was sent out earlier this week with “new details about the roadmap to the launch, including our plans for mass regional assemblies and our founding conference”.

It concluded: “Soon, you will be able to turn your support into membership at yourparty.uk, and shape the future of our party and our country.”

It was signed by Corbyn, Khan, Hussain, Mohamed and Adam – but notably not Sultana.

Sultana then issued a response on X, saying: “Neither of this week’s emails had the dual authorisation of both myself and Jeremy – which was the agreement made at the start of this process.”

She said after being “sidelined” she chose to launch a membership portal in “line with the roadmap”.

“My sole motivation has been to safeguard the grassroots involvement that is essential to building this party,” she wrote.

“Unfortunately I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely. 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.”

She added: “I regret that today’s statement has misrepresented the situation. My actions have been consistent with our shared commitment: to build an open, democratic and member-led organisation.”

She concluded by calling on Corbyn to “meet with me and agree to make public all agreed structures”.

Sources close to the Corbyn camp told HuffPost UK it was “absolute chaos” in their office as a result of this division today.

Corbyn’s team have been approached for comment.

This all follows earlier disruptions over the very timing of the announcement of the party last month, and the question mark over just what the group will be called.