Dear readers — the cracks in Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party have deepened, with a “thermonuclear” power grab and talk of legal action threatening to derail the left-wing project. That story, involving Perry Barr’s Ayoub Khan, dominated the papers over the weekend. Find the run-down in our Big Story below.
Also today: pop-up brand Boxpark has confirmed it will not be opening in Digbeth; and a Conservative-turned-Reform campaigner has been locked out of his Facebook account. Plus, two rewards totalling £30k are on the table for anyone with information on the racially-aggravated rape of a Sikh woman in Oldbury.
Catch up and coming up:
- Read Kate’s deep-dive into divisions emerging within the West Midlands Sikh community over how to address issues of sexual violence: here. She is continuing to look into this story. If you have any information, contact her on kate@birminghamdispatch.co.uk
- On Saturday, Alex Taylor, explored the fall out from the cancellation of the long running Brummie BBC sitcom Doctors.
- We’re still trialling our source clinic at The Dispatch: where you can come and discuss the city with us. Come meet Samuel for a coffee at 1000 Trades between 12 noon and 5pm on 15 October. Sign up sheet here.
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Photo of the week
Buddy Holly plays Birmingham Town Hall in 1958. Photo: (Creative Commons). Remember this gig? Let us know in the comments.
Big Story: Local ‘Your Party’ MPs at centre of fall out
Top line: The future of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new left-wing party is in doubt, following a very public spat between their two camps. A “thermonuclear” power grab by Sultana has been thwarted by threats of legal action by the former Labour leader and his faction of independent MPs.
Context: Disputes started last Thursday when the Coventry South MP launched a sign-up portal for the fledgling party without Corbyn’s backing. Her unilateral action follows a similar stunt in July, when she appeared to blindside the former Labour leader by independently announcing that the pair would be co-leaders of the new project
Two sides go to war: The split has exposed a power struggle between Sultana and Corbyn’s Independent Alliance of five male MPs, which includes the member for Perry Barr Ayoub Khan. According to the i Paper, Your Party was ready to establish a convention and constitution at a conference next month, but Sultana was unhappy that she was outnumbered by the men. “She went thermonuclear and launched a membership structure for Your Party that put her and her faction in charge,” an insider revealed.
Big Numbers: Sultana claims that over 20,000 people had signed up by the afternoon of the 18th, at £5 a month, or £55 a year — potentially generating more than £1 million in revenue for the group. Sky News reports that the membership portal has been reported to the Information Commissioners Office.
Boys Club? On the same day, Corbyn posted a joint letter from the Independent MPs claiming that the membership portal was “unauthorised” and asking members to cancel their direct debits. They added that “legal advice is being taken” . On X, Sultana lambasted the pro-Gaza MPs as a “sexist boys club”, claiming they had blocked a gender balanced committee and prevented other women from gaining voting rights.
Call the lawyers: A day later Sultana again took to X to announce that she was instructing lawyers to issue a defamation lawsuit against unspecified individuals. The instruction appears to relate to unsubstantiated allegations around GDPR and financial risk attached to the membership portal. She insisted that members’ data was not put at risk and all funds received were ringfenced and protected.
Backpeddling: However, late on Sunday night, she had a change of heart. Announcing on X, that she was withdrawing legal proceedings, she wrote: “for the sake of the party…I will not be pursuing legal proceedings despite the baseless and unsubstantiated proceedings against me.”
A quiet participant: Birmingham’s Independent Alliance MP for Perry Barr and potential Your Party representative, barrister Ayoub Khan has so far remained silent on the fall out. As of today, he has only retweeted Corbyn’s statement about Sultana’s “unauthorised” membership portal.
Losing faith: Responses to the widely-publicised spat have ranged from dismay by would-be supporters to ridicule from opponents. One person who signed up told Sky News, “the split is quite embarrassing." Andrew Fisher, a former policy advisor to Corbyn, told the BBC “if they can’t get their act together between them, it doesn’t give people a lot of faith that the vehicle can get off the ground.” Others, close to both Corbyn and Sultana, have claimed that they are trying to help the two MPs patch things up.
Bottom line: With a potential split between Corbyn and Sultana looking likely, the West Midlands might soon have three insurgent left-wing parties: Sultana’s ‘Your Party’, Ayoub Khan’s ‘Your Party,’ and the recently formed Black Country Party.
Brum in Brief
📦 Food and retail venue Boxpark will no longer be coming to Digbeth, according to I Choose Birmingham. The up-market pop-up brand with sites in Shoreditch, Croydon and Wembley had intended to open a branch in Digbeth located between Floodgate Street and Milk Street, within Birmingham’s railway arches. The plan, which was approved by Birmingham City Council last year, was slated to generate over 200 jobs in the area. Last year, Boxpark COO Ben McLaughlin said it would be “a big project for the team and our aim is to carefully restore the Floodgate Street Arches while giving it a new lease of life,” but the firm confirmed last week it was not going ahead.
🔒 A former Conservative campaigner appears to have been locked out of his Facebook account after defecting to Reform UK. Paul Smith, a community campaigner in Allens Cross, had been using a Conservative Party account to reach over 2,000 followers, but at the weekend he announced that a “technical issue” meant he had to “abandon” his old page and has set up a new one. Photographs posted by the Reform UK Birmingham Northfield page suggest Smith is now campaigning for Farage’s party. In the comments, the suspended Conservative councillor for Frankley Great Park, Simon Morrall congratulated him for “crossing the floor to Reform”.
🇵🇸 West Midlands Combined Authority mayor Richard Parker has backed prime minister Keir Starmer by recognising Palestinian statehood, writing on X that: “a two-state solution remains the only credible path to a just and lasting peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.” Parker also cited the ongoing killing in Gaza: “The drip-feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians simply seeking food and water is horrifying.”
🚓 Four people have been shot at Birmingham nightlife spot Mango Club on Bristol Street. The Guardian reports that one man remained in hospital, while three others were being treated for minor injuries after the attempted shooting last Saturday night. Three people in their 20s and 30s were consequently arrested in a car in Warwickshire, shortly after the shooting.
⚽ Birmingham Perry Barr MP Ayoub Khan, alongside local Aston councillor Mumtaz Hussain, are campaigning against Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv playing at Villa Park. They have contacted UEFA, the UK culture minister and Aston Villa asking them to cancel the match. Khan and Hussain are asking the various stakeholders to: “take immediate steps to ensure public safety and community harmony.”
🪯 The fallout from an alleged rape against a Sikh woman in Oldbury has intensified. According to the BBC, the charity Crimestoppers are offering a £20k reward for identification of the alleged rapists. The pro-Khalistan West Midlands based organisation Sikh Federation UK has offered an additional £10k reward for anyone who can bring information leading to an arrest. The MP for Edgbaston, Preet Gill has also spoken out against the assault, saying: “I think the racial connotation in this attack tells you that there's a minority of people that feel quite emboldened who are trying to create division and hate.”
🚌 The good people of Ludlow, only 40 miles away from Birmingham, are finding it almost impossible to get into the city by bus, according to The Guardian. The paper has revealed that Birmingham’s surrounding counties, including Shropshire and Worcestershire have seen some of the worst reductions in bus route lengths in the UK. According to data, Shropshire has seen a 60% reduction in bus travel distances since 2019, while Worcestershire has seen distances fall by about 58% during the same period.
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Quick Hits
🫓 The recently opened Gail’s Bakery on New Street has failed hygiene test after less than a year of operations. (Birmingham Mail).
🇺🇸 150 jobs created in Birminghan in a contract to build military aircraft for the USA (BBC).
🛍️ UNIQLO confirms it will open in the Bullring on 16 October. (Birmingham Mail).
👑 King Charles III’s estate has made more than £1 million from taxpayers selling land to HS2 (The Guardian).
🎁 A full list of gifts given to Birmingham city councillors has been made available. (Birmingham Mail).
🤝 Birmingham City Council emergency meeting called over Oracle IT system expose. (Birmingham Mail).
🗑️ Thousands have gathered to stage a rally in support of striking Birmingham bin workers. (BBC).
Media picks
🍛 Birmingham and the Black Country are home to some of the best Desi pubs in the country (shout out to the Merrymaid where we had a recent team dinner), and a new documentary explores their origin story. The Rise of the Mixy charts the challenging climate of racial segregation in the 1960s and 1970s where many South Asian people were refused entry to pubs. But, “they stood up to it, at great risk to themselves, and they created change." says producer Updesh Singh in this BBC feature. That included creating places for the community to meet and so: the Desi pub was born.
✍️ We were pleased to get a shout out in this Guardian article by George Monbiot in which he argues that, in his 40 year career as a reporter, it has never been more difficult than now to hold the powerful to account. “I finally saw the bleeding obvious: you cannot speak truth to power if power controls your words,” he writes of the current media landscape which is filled with titles owned by the very rich. And yet, a groundswell of independent journalism is occurring – especially at the local level. Monbiot writes: “something is stirring; something that could become very big – a citizens’ revolt against the propaganda of power.”
Our to do list
🎸 On Tuesday, British-Iranian guitarist Karim Saber will be performing for the Digbeth Jazz crowd at the Night Owl. Tickets £6.13.
🐂 On Wednesday, Joe Lycett’s International Day of Birmingham is back for the second year of celebrations. Featuring local legends like Carl Chinn and Tat Vision, events are happening at locations across the city — some free, some ticketed.
🎻 On Thursday, head to the Symphony Hall for Britten & Elgar — a programme of three pieces of music spanning 100 years of history. Tickets from £26.
🎞️ On Saturday, the MAC is screening Masaaki Yuasa’s bold interpretation of Hideo Furukawa’s novel, The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-Oh Chapters as part of the Birmingham Anime Film Festival. Expect hip-hop and psychedelic rock in 14th century Japan. Tickets £10.45.
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