After the founding conference of what is now officially named Your Party, Compass is reaffirming its commitment to working with, alongside and through people who are members of all progressive parties and none.
Your Party’s immediate commitment to a better future for all in this country shares a great deal with Compass’ intentions. There are distinct areas where we can and should work together, such as on the public ownership of essential utilities including water – a key tenet of Compass’ work and of Your Party’s policy.
As a result, Compass wants to reaffirm that members of Your Party are welcome in our ranks – much like members of Labour, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and those who are non-aligned.
A significant aspect of Compass’ campaigning work in the latter half of 2025 has been on making the Labour Party in government a party more equitable, hospitable and progressive. The dismaying actions of the Labour right at the top of the party – hostile briefing to the press, cracking down on party democracy, limiting the scope for debate and serving the interests of a narrow, hyperfactional clique at the top – are something Compass is committed to ending.
It was disheartening to see some of these same actions appear at Your Party’s founding conference at the end of November.
Politics is a fraught, emotionally-charged, messy thing. It can bring out the best and the worst in people. One of our distinct aims at Compass is to see that politics is done differently with respect, care and compassion – a future we negotiate together not impose.
This is one of the reasons why we would urge Your Party to explicitly support proportional representation going forward.
Part of the reason we have been so vocal about ensuring that the Labour leadership stop their hyperfactionalism – and instead listen to and better represent their members – is because any political project that is just about a few people is no political project destined to bring about the Good Society.
It’s the same reason we have encouraged our Green members to be vocal about their hopes and concerns under new leader Zack Polanski, and continue to develop dialogue through our Lib Dem members on the place liberalism has in the latter half of the 2020s.
To put it simply, the infighting in Your Party needs to end. Thousands of people put their faith and their money in that political project – including a number of Compass members – and have expressed distinct disappointment in the culture that has emerged.
But rather than shun this political project that so many believe in, Compass is there to help our members to push for every progressive party to, at their core, embrace a more democratic and pluralist culture.
With the double threat of Reform rearing its ugly head and our fractured political system, the progressive majority of this country working together has never been more important – within and between parties. At Compass, we want to build the progressive alliances so that in 2029, we don’t just win 40 seats, but 400 – and with that win, we can transform the country.
Together, the Good Society is possible.
Kindness and love will prevail !!!
I agree your comments that factionalism is one of the continuing failures of the liberal left. A typical case adherence to the perceived excellent preventing good from happening.
For all Tony Blair’s shortcomings, his years allowed critics like Corbyn and others to stay within governing party.
The fact that Corbyn and Starmer have not spoken for years reflects badly on them both.
Principles are essential, but without conversation, a win-win or compromise is impossible. Progress towards necessary change is often incremental. Surely incremental progress is better than none.
Factionalism has long been the bane of the radical left, with predictably dire electoral consequences. It really is imperative that we create a broadly based progressive alliance, in which parties which agree on 80 to 90% of their policies commit to working together both electorally and (hopefully) in government. Personal vanity and ideological purity are two luxuries which we clearly cannot afford.
Since you ask for a reply I’ll give it. Zack Polanski is at present our only hope at the next GE. Your Party will just split the vote and prevent a totally new sort of government that this country so desperately needs.
He and the Greens are also committed to introducing PR.
Nobody else comes close and it’s no use pretending otherwise.
Care, Hope and Compassion = Green
Vanity, sectarianism and populism within the psyche of Jeremy Corbyn.
Vanity, sectarianism and populism has infected the Green Party via its new leadership.
Vanity, sectarianism and populism was one of the main drivers behind me leaving the Labour Party under Starmer, having been a member since 1978.
I guess that I would feel the same about Plaid Cymru and the SNP if I lived in Wales or Scotland.
The Liberal Democrats are not reliable apart from on PR and they even blew that under Clegg, along with much else.
We see much of the same with Compass, Make votes matter, Open Britain, ERS and a plethora of other organisations all in the same space talking to the same people but sadly not moving the dial much, if at all.
Identity politics has taken over from class as a driver amongst many on the “left” further dividing the majority who want a better, fairer society.
What is needed is for progressive minded people to wake up and smell the coffee, right wing populism has been let loose and funded by the rich and powerful, including it appears the MAGA movement in the USA. Unity is strength so we say, when will we return to being positive, pro Europe, pro Nato, pro people, pro PR?
Maybe I’m missing something but in all this space only Hope not Hate seem to be campaigning on something that really matters, unless you’re Farage!
I will continue with my Compass membership because I believe in a better society and need some hope.
Hello Mark,
I agree very strongly with almost everything you’ve written.
I suppose all that I would add is that we have seen a parody level of division amongst those of us who are “mostly left”. Splinter groups which then splinter!
But: Zack Polanski has met in a very public and friendly manner with Zarah Sultana – even though they are very much chasing the same voters.
I’m unlikely to vote for Your Party after their in-fighting but their interests are mostly similar to mine.
Our arguments should be with the Parties that get the whopping donations, largely from “patriots” that… live abroad.
We all need to pull together as a broad movement.
Good on you all. Present democracy is a sham, bought and paid for by the super rich. We really need to unite the masses before it’s too late. All hope and power to you.
I welcome the above statement and of course would encourage people with common aims, whatever their party allegiance, to work together to further those aims. But I also despair of the infighting and lack of vision in the Labour Government.
Full disclosure: as a member of the Green Party for 25 years, and before that a member of the Lib Dems, I joined Compass precisely because I despair of so much “Judean People’s Front” kind of attitude that just holds progressive politics back and plays into the hands of the forces of reaction and authoritarianism.
Unity is strength so we say, when will we return to being positive, pro Europe, pro Nato, pro people, pro PR?
Yes !
I completely agree that it is essential for progressive parties to work together and that is why I am a committed member of Compass. It is disappointing to read some comments here which do not seem to support this view. It is essential to combat the rise of Reform and it is disappointing that the present government is not being more critical of Reform’s policies (if you can call them that) such as privatisation of the NHS. I very much dislike the tribal nature of British politics. If you look at the beliefs and intentions of the left wing parties, they have a lot in common.
I agree that the Greens – working together with other progressive and left leaning parties, which they have openly expressed a willingless to do (unlike Your Party) – is our best hope for change to a new, positive, collaborative, communiuty-based and -hopefully- transformative politicas in the UK. I initially registered an interest in Your Party, but not only did they not bother to reply, but they have also blown it completely with their ongoing infighting, ever since the party began. Will the left ever learn that factionalism is destructive and counterproductive? Following thirty years active membershiup of the Labour party, I have now joined the Greens and intend to become active in supporting them.
My heart sank when I first heard about Your Party – why do we need yet another party on the left, which will split the vote even more than it already is? How will the general public, and even committed voters, distinguish between 4 different strands on the left ( as well as the Nationalist parties?) Progressives must find common ground and present a united front to get any chance of winning a strong representation in Parliament, so the work of Compass becomes ever more crucial.
I am a member of a Party that gets largely ignored amongst progressives – the Cooperative Party. (But not Labour). Just as co-operative solutions to the need for basic utilities that serve collective and community interests are ignored. Despite the millions of people and thousands of co-operative organisations internationally that do just that.
It’s time “progressives” recognised that there is an established alternative to both private and state ownership?