Dear Peter,

I’m writing to share an update following the Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting held on 12 April.

Local Elections
On the English local elections, work continues apace, with individual Your Party-backed candidates confirmed in member votes, alongside our support for several community independent groups, in line with members’ votes at the founding conference. You can read more in this Guardian article.

Our initial priority has been to support candidates and aligned groups to ensure all regulatory requirements are met and provide funding and communications support. From this week, we will scale up our efforts to support members to get canvassing as we harness our mass movement.

Dual Membership
In addition to updates on our campaigning for the forthcoming local elections, the primary focus of this meeting was a proposal on dual membership, which many members have engaged with thoughtfully over recent months. The CEC worked through a series of amendments in detail, and after full consideration, the paper was approved.

This builds on the decision taken by Conference in Liverpool and provides a clear and consistent framework going forward. Members remain free to hold a wide range of political views and to organise within Your Party, including forming internal groupings and networks. That openness is an important part of how we build a broad and democratic political movement.

At the same time, formal membership of another national political party operating with its own distinct ideology, programme, and system of internal discipline and accountability is not compatible with membership of Your Party. This ensures that we can operate in a spirit of pluralism while always taking decisions together for the best interests of Your Party, and not any other group.

We will now bring forward a further paper on implementation, ensuring this is introduced in a structured and workable way.

Alongside this, the CEC also approved the complaints and disciplinary framework following consideration of amendments. This is an important step in ensuring that concerns are handled consistently, fairly, and through the proper processes. We appreciate members have not always had timely responses to concerns, and will work as quickly as we can to make improvements.

Additional Updates
We also heard updates on the work already underway across the party. There has been steady progress on building our branch structures. This work will continue over the coming weeks, with consultation of members about the best branch size for their area.

A political update was shared on the wider national context, reinforcing the need for us to focus not only on building our internal structures, but on engaging with the issues facing people across the country and supporting campaigns that matter to our communities. As a result, we will be creating more space in future meetings for discussion of campaigns, political priorities, and member-led contributions.

On that note, Your Party stands firmly behind the National Housing Demonstration in London this Saturday, 18 April, organised by a coalition of housing and renters’ groups. We’ll be in touch soon with more details on how members and supporters can take part.

The next meeting will also hear reports from the working parties being established to support the development of Your Party in Scotland and Wales, as this work progresses. A sortitioned committee of Scottish members is currently being put together, to support the work of branch formation ahead of elections for a Scottish Executive Committee to replace the outgoing interim executive.

Looking ahead, our focus is on continuing to build: strengthening our organisation, supporting campaigns, developing our branch network, and engaging constructively with others who share our broad aims.

Thank you, as always, for your engagement, your patience as we put these structures in place, and your continued commitment to building the party.

In solidarity, 

Jenn Forbes
Your Party Chair