Jeremy Corbyn insists Your Party is united despite months of infighting with Zarah Sultana

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Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana were keen to put on a united front at the Your Party conference in Liverpool

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Jeremy Corbyn has insisted that Your Party is united after a turbulent first few months marred by infighting and division with his co-leader, Zarah Sultana.

Speaking at the party’s first conference in Liverpool, he said the party had now come together “because division and disunity will not serve the interests of the people that we want to represent”.

The fresh commitment to unity comes hours after Mr Corbyn declined to call Ms Sultana a friend when asked during an interview with Sky News. Instead, he said the pair were “colleagues in parliament, and we obviously communicate and so on”.

The two party co-leaders then appeared at separate events on the eve of the party's first gathering.

But the former Labour leader insisted they had put their differences behind them. He told members: “Last night here in Liverpool, we had a number of events on and Zarah (Sultana) spoke at a great rally, and I very happily and proudly sent a message to that rally – and I was grateful that it was read out to that rally – of support and solidarity.

“I was at a poetry and music event at the Black E, and Zarah sent a message to that.

“As a party, we’ve got to come together and be united because division and disunity will not serve the interests of the people that we want to represent. So that’s the basis on which we launch the party now.”

His words come after a rocky start for the party, fraught with internal division as Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana’s dispute led to a botched membership launch and threats of legal action.

Ms Sultana complained she had been subjected to a “sexist boys’ club” after supporters were invited to officially sign up and give the party financial backing. But Mr Corbyn described the move as an “unauthorised email” and just hours later warned members in a statement posted on social media not to sign up via the link.

Two MPs who helped to set up the outfit have also since quit; last week, Iqbal Mohamed said in a statement that he had decided to leave Your Party and continue to serve his Dewsbury and Batley constituency as an independent MP. And earlier this month, MP Adnan Hussain said he was withdrawing from the party’s “steering process”, citing concerns about factionalism and “veiled prejudice” against Muslims.

Outlining plans for the future of the party in his speech, Mr Corbyn called for a membership oversight committee to “steward” the establishment of Your Party branches and said he wanted to see control of the party given to its members “as soon as possible”.

He then turned his criticism to his former party, as he countered the way he and Ms Sultana were running Your Party with the “top down” nature of Labour.

He said: "I've had enough of top-down parties. I spent a lifetime in the Labour Party, mostly fighting Labour Party bureaucracy. I don't want to repeat that in Your Party. I don't want to repeat that experience."

Mr Corbyn then went on to criticise Labour’s new immigration crackdown, which includes making refugee status temporary, subject to reviews every 30 months, and sending those claiming asylum back to their home countries if their country is deemed safe.

"We've got to challenge the government,” he said. “They have fuelled the whole hatred towards refugees. I say to all those people that thought they were going to get something better. Think again. What you're seeing is an attack on human rights.

“What you're seeing is an attack on our civil liberties. We are not joining in that attack. We're on the other side of that.”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s recent Home Office decisions have sparked praise from Reform, with former Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who defected to Nigel Farage’s party, saying in Commons earlier this month: “I welcome the rhetoric that the home secretary has announced.”

But Mr Corbyn dismissed Labour’s hardened stance and other recent policy changes, telling party members in his speech: “If you want to defeat Reform, you don't do it by copying what Reform do. You don't do it by attacking jury trials, slipping away our civil rights or our right to protest. What we need is something radical, a socialist alternative, rather than a fake populism of Reform or others. And it's up to us, our party, your party, to provide it.”

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