An Evening With Zarah Sultana

I had the opportunity to attend An Evening With Zarah Sultana at the University of Surrey, graciously hosted by Amelie Abass. As I entered the building, socialist campaigners unaffiliated with the university passed out pamphlets outside, which promised alliances with trade unions, standing up to Reform, and not much more. That seemed to be an appropriate introduction to the night.

Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South since 2019, formerly of Labour Party fame, is now known for her infamous involvement in the tritely stylised Your Party, which she cofounded. Sultana freely admitted to being held up to national scrutiny,  even more so than is typical for even the average notorious British politician. Yet, as her talk demonstrated, a closer examination of her scruples and motives seems to be merited given her knack for sweeping statements that recall a Socialist party line she fails to even delineate the core tenets of. 

There were a lot of sound bites like, “An attack on one is an attack on all”, or “The fight is too big, austerity is on the horizon”. They worked. As the students behind me responded enthusiastically to Sultana’s pointed pauses for applause, they whispered excitedly to each other, I didn’t realise she’d be so charismatic. 

It wasn’t all charisma, given that Sultana got a lot right. She correctly pointed out a highly militarised mindset that has pervaded Europe since the outset of the wars in Ukraine and to a lesser extent, Gaza. Her signature issue, the disillusionment of young people given mounting debt, housing and job insecurity, and an inability of the government to reflect social concerns, resonated with the young audience. She admirably kept returning to the genocide in Gaza, a core part of her political platform and journey. 

Unfortunately, this was where the underdevelopment of Your Party’s principles began to show. Most young people treat condemnation of the genocide and divestment from investment as a moral given, rather than something to shape a Socialist (read: domestic) platform around. Being a Socialist is about more than door knocking and liaising with trade unions, two concepts that Sultana again exalted the benefits of. What hid behind Sultana’s charisma was her return to her few key popular points to gracefully skirt around this summer’s scandal where Your Party accepted donations from supporters around the country, without a coherent sense of leadership or direction with which to take the funds. 

This is not to say that this emphasis on ideology over policy hasn’t been an issue in every nascent political or social movement throughout human history. But, as Sultana herself explained when she was asked about differentiating herself from other left leaning parties in the country, including the official Socialist Party itself, she feels it is important to have multiple voices in the left given the UK’s coalition style governance model. It is the very fact that plurality is an essential expression of democracy that it must be challenged towards complexity. 

This complexity is omitted in constant calls to action against a vague threat of “fascism” Sultana, as well as the Your Party core messaging, constantly refer back to. Is the current British government fascist? Certainly not, and it seems unproductive and disrespectful to condemn it as such. By using galvanising rhetorical techniques that call upon historical hatreds of a faceless Fascist front, Your Party hides its lack of purpose behind morality, a phenomenon visible on both sides of the political spectrum.

I would also like to see less absolutism and fearmongering from Sultana, given that she said that the next prime minister will either be Zack Polanski or Nigel Farage: this only contributes to political polarisation. I worry that Your Party, which is largely centred around an economic viewpoint of addressing social issues in an orthodox Socialist style, suffers from the trap of moralistic militancy that many well-meaning leftist groups do: their talk of uniting with trade unions, grassroots movements, and young people remains stuck in that realm due to the ego politics and ideological splits of their leaders.

Here is another trap that befalls the Gen Z politician. People are more concerned with your Letterboxd Top 4 than your ability to coherently espouse your own policies outside of what is trending on social media. Another tidbit I overheard: She’s so great, I think she needs to post more. Ironically, I agreed. The Your Party website remains sparse in terms of content, Sultana’s Instagram largely comprises X screenshots, and key questions about proposed policy remain unanswered. 

Sultana was asked about her relationship with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, almost as a matter of course. He features in one of her pinned posts on Instagram, in a correct assumption that their infamous and overlapping Gen Z audiences linked them together, given their efforts as popular, young democratic Socialists from South Asian immigrant backgrounds. This seems like a trite yet true example of how Sultana seems to be piggybacking off of broad statements promising social good, long gone leftist political movements, and the success of other figures like Zack Polanski and Zohran Mamdani to cobble together what is nothing more than Gen Z’s online political party, more of a social marker of moral status than a real, legitimate ideology. 

In an absurd close to the event, Piers Corbyn, the controversial climate-change and vaccine-denying former councillor in Southwark, and brother of slightly less disgraced Prime Ministerial hopeful Jeremy Corbyn, was nearly escorted out by security for his insistent and repeated interruptions. He asked Sultana why she wouldn’t offer him any support, given their newfound mutual status as political exiles. Sultana calmly explained to him that she believed in the right things, unlike him. Even amidst the zaniness of the event and today’s increasingly uncertain political climate, I still am not sure what Sultana, or the left as a whole, mean by right.

Image: Flickr/House of Commons

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