This morning, an e-mail went out from the original Your Party domain name stating that membership sign-ups had finally opened, with the signup allowing people to enter their details again, submit areas they were interested in supporting and then finally allowing them to pay via Stripe.
In a video attached to the e-mail sent out to members, Jeremy Corbyn mentioned the issues that had occurred in the party, suggesting that we will get over them, and providing a link to say membership was now open.
At first the servers groaned from the strain but eventually the site went back up and sign-ups were completed. Unfortunately, there was no mention of any of the issues which had stemmed from the existing leadership, or why.
But it is a good thing that there is at least some plan that is being followed and things are moving along. It is unfortunate that, this is ocurrring without much communication from the factions/leaders in charge, and that we still have random-selection of branch members to break up existing groups, which conveniently will bypass the leaders and the MPs already in the party.
I’m not going to back down from defending the need for a real democracy in the party, because this to me smacks too much of Blairite top-down control. It’s pretty certainly not going to be as bad as New Labour, but picking and choosing members and breaking up local democracy is in my opinion, not democratic.
The Sign-up link is here if you’ve not already clicked it: https://in.yourparty.uk/en/users/sign_up
There is not currently a publicly-available e-mail address for people to contact re: reimbursement for their previously paid membership. Some branches have said their membership has carried over, however, this does not appear to be correct from personal experience.
Click to watch video above.