TL;DR
- Zarah Sultana will begin transferring £600,000 in donations to Your Party in tranches, starting with £200,000, amid ongoing internal disputes regarding fund management.
- Ms Sultana has faced criticism from Your Party officials for not transferring the full £800,000 immediately, with concerns raised about liabilities and governance issues.
- The situation has been complicated by an earlier membership launch controversy, leading to a “low trust environment” within the party as they prepare for their founding conference.
Ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana at centre of new party row over £800k in donations | UK Politics News
Donations being held by Zarah Sultana will be transferred over to Your Party in tranches from this week, but the party stand-off remains.
Ms Sultana has sole control of a company holding over £800,000 of Your Party donations following an internal fallout.
Her spokesperson said £600k would be transferred over in three tranches starting with £200k from Wednesday, and the rest “once the company’s costs, expenses and liabilities are settled in full”.
But a Your Party source revealed she should transfer the full £800k worth of donations now.
Major funding issue for Your Party
It follows a major row over finances behind the scenes of the new left-wing party, which Ms Sultana co-launched with Jeremy Corbyn in July.
At the time, a company called MOU Operations was used to collect donations, with the idea this would be transferred over to Your Party once it was formally registered with the Electoral Commission.
The registration happened on 30 September, but no transfer of funds has been made – despite Ms Sultana stepping in to take ownership of MOU last month after its previous three directors quit.
It is understood MOU is also holding around £500k in fees collected as part of Ms Sultana’s unauthorised membership launch, which caused a major row in September and is now being investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The Your Party source told Sky News that Ms Sultana has been told Your Party can’t accept that money due to legal risks and accused her of trying to “offload” it.