Your Party to launch legal action against three of its ‘rogue’ founders, sources say
Your Party, the leftwing party steered by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, says it is preparing legal action against a group of its own founders after a final deadline to hand over at least £800,000 in donations passed without payment, the Guardian understands,Figures close to the party accused directors of MoU Operations Ltd (MoU) of having “gone rogue”, holding supporters’ funds to ransom and undermining its founding process “despite direct pleas from Jeremy and Zarah”,Party insiders say they “reluctantly” agreed to initiate legal proceedings after “exhausting every possible alternative” to recover the money still held by the directors of MoU,MoU is run by Andrew Feinstein, the anti-apartheid activist who ran as an independent candidate in Keir Starmer’s constituency; Jamie Driscoll, the former North of Tyne mayor; and Beth Winter, the former Labour MP for Cynon Valley,The three helped shape the movement’s early structure before relations broke down.
The latest row threatens to overshadow and affect the party’s first national conference in Liverpool next month, where members are due to approve a draft constitution and elect a 21-member executive.One person close to the conference planning process warned the party could be forced to invite fewer delegates because of the lack of funds and data.The £800,000 pot, currently held by MoU, was amassed from membership donations to the party from early July, after Sultana’s unilateral announcement that she and Corbyn were “co-leaders”, to 17 September, the Guardian has been told.Sources close to the party directors say an agreement was signed in July and referenced Your Party’s original privacy policy, in which MoU was meant to hold the money and data only until the party was formally registered, and then transfer it to the new entity.The party was formally registered with the Electoral Commission on 30 September, yet funds remain in MoU’s account.
The Guardian has seen a screenshot of Your Party’s original privacy policy, which was only valid until the party was registered.The MoU directors have been accused by sources of refusing to transfer the pot of donations and membership data, despite repeatedly committing to do so and being legally obliged to do so.Party insiders say the deadline for the final transfer had passed on Friday night, prompting the decision to pursue legal action.The dispute also covers the control of thousands of supporters’ data collected during a unilateral and unauthorised launch of a membership portal on 18 September.Sultana invited supporters to sign up to the portal on X, with a link to a website styled as Your Party’s official portal but hosted on a separate domain.
Sources close to the party note the site listed MoU as the data controller and routed payments to its bank account,The launch of that portal – shared and retweeted on X by Driscoll and Feinstein – prompted Your Party to refer itself to the information commissioner’s office,The investigation continues,Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionLawyers have advised Your Party directors not to take ownership of MoU because of potential liabilities connected to the portal’s launch, leaving legal action as the last route,The fight highlights the deep fractures within the party that was pitched as a fresh start for Britain’s left after being “sealed in a tomb” when inside Labour.
Since the unauthorised portal launch last month, which resulted in more than 20,000 sign-ups, members have been offered three months’ free membership if they re-register on a new website.But organisers are not able to contact them because they have had no access to their identities.In a statement to the Guardian, Driscoll, Winter and Feinstein said: “These allegations are factually incorrect and frankly nonsense.We will make a full statement when we have time, but none of us are paid politicians with press officers.”The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.
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Hundreds of hospice beds and staff cut in England amid funding crisis
Hospices in England are cutting hundreds of beds and staff because of a funding crisis, despite a sharp rise in demand for palliative care, a damning report warns.People needing end of life care faced a postcode lottery because access to services was so patchy, the National Audit Office (NAO) reported.A lack of government oversight meant ministers were unaware of how reliant they were on independent hospices, its 52-page report found.The NAO said nearly two-thirds of independent hospices in England reported a deficit in 2023-24. Overall expenditure was £78m more than income generated
‘No more children are going to die like you’: how Sheffield mother kept her promise to boys killed by father 11 years ago
When Claire Throssell held her dying son Jack in her arms, she made him a promise: that no more children would die in the circumstances he had – at the hands of a violent parent, on a court-ordered unsupervised visit.Jack and Paul, then aged 12 and nine, were killed by their father 11 years ago, when he lured them into the attic with a new train set, barricaded the house shut and used Throssell’s possessions to set 14 separate fires.“When I held him in my arms, just like I did Paul,” she said, “I made him one last promise. I said to him: ‘No more children are going to die like you.’”Last week, on the anniversary of the fire, she was invited to meet the prime minister in Downing Street, as the government announced that it planned to repeal the presumption that children should have contact with both parents, under which decisions are made in the family court
NHS makes morning-after pill available for free across pharmacies in England
The NHS has made the morning-after pill available for free across pharmacies in England in an effort to reduce a “postcode lottery” of access to emergency contraception.Almost 10,000 pharmacies are now able to offer the pill without charge, saving those in need of free emergency contraception from having to visit their GP or to get an appointment at a sexual health clinic.Some pharmacies were previously charging as much as £30 for emergency oral contraception.The NHS’s national clinical director for women’s health, Dr Sue Mann, said the expansion was “one of the biggest changes to sexual health services since the 1960s” and “a gamechanger in making reproductive healthcare more easily accessible for women”.“Instead of trying to search for women’s services or explain their needs, from today women can just pop into their local pharmacy and get the oral emergency contraceptive pill free of charge without needing to make an appointment,” she said
Five more prisoners freed in error after sex offender’s release from Essex jail
Five other prisoners have also been released by mistake in the same week a convicted Ethiopian sex offender was allowed to walk free from an Essex jail, says the prison officers’ union.The disclosure of further mistakes highlights the intense pressure on prison staff, according to the Prison Officers’ Association (POA).Last Friday, Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford after being sentenced to 12 months in jail in September for sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl while living in an asylum hotel in Epping.After a two-day manhunt he was tracked down in north London and returned to detention.His mistaken release inflamed public anger, given his case had already caused unrest across England and Wales over the summer, with many demonstrators rallying against asylum accommodation and voicing anti-immigration sentiments
EHRC guidance will help businesses comply with the law on sex and gender | Letter
I can reassure businesses that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) takes how equality law is applied in everyday situations extremely seriously (Dozens of Labour MPs warn of chaos for firms over gender recognition advice, 23 October). It’s our job to accurately explain how to implement the law in practice and we have taken every opportunity to do so since the supreme court clarified the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act in April.Our updated code of practice for service providers, submitted to the UK government seven weeks ago, will help balance the rights of service users and protect everyone from discrimination.These updates haven’t been rushed. Our consultation on the updated code heard from more than 50,000 organisations and individuals, including businesses, whose views helped make the guidance as clear as possible
Gambling does not cause any ‘social ills’, lobbyist tells incredulous MPs
The boss of the UK’s main betting and gaming lobby group has told MPs that there is no “social ill with gambling” as she warned against imposing higher taxes on the sector in the November budget.Grainne Hurst, the chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, repeatedly made the statement to parliament’s Treasury select committee on Tuesday, where she also claimed that higher taxes would result in thousands of job losses and push punters into using hidden market services.Hurst made the comments as part of the gambling industry’s lobbying against calls to increase taxes on the sector – including on products seen as the most risky for creating problem gamblers, such as online casinos and the betting machines that fill high street adult gaming centres (AGCs).During an at-times testy session, the committee member John Glen said to Hurst: “This issue has become pertinent in the run-up to a budget because people and government [are] frustrated that the taxation of something that does have a significant social ill for those individuals isn’t properly addressed in our tax system.”Hurst responded: “I would disagree that there are social ills as a result of it
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From Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere to IT: Welcome to Derry – your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead