South Cumbria Socialists

By Colin Henderson

In the wake of the decisions of the CEC banning dual membership and refusing to recognise proto branches, the Your Party proto branch in the Westmorland constituency decided on 15 April to drop all YP branding and continue as a broader local socialist association.

South Cumbria Socialists will unite socialists in the local area to discuss progressive ideas in mutual respect, meet and take agreed actions. Participation is open to all living in the Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency who identify themselves as socialists using a broad definition such as the Your Party Political Statement.

Membership of other socialist and left parties and groups, including Your Party and the Greens, is expressly permitted. Those remaining members of YP will stay connected while they await the YP call to attend an official inaugural meeting.

South Cumbria Socialists have agreed to remain affiliated to the Connections network and welcome its initiative in organising independently from Your Party. They hope to send some members to the Sheffield conference on 6 June.

Background

Many of us who left the Labour Party in 2021 had been organising since then under banners such as Keep Our NHS Public, standing in local elections as TUSC candidates and supporting regular pro-Palestine actions. In August 2025 we all enthusiastically welcomed the Your Party (YP) initiative and began meeting monthly.

The first meeting was huge by our standards. This was in the expectation that our group would soon be recognised as a local constituency branch. Our existing social media was rebranded as YP.
However, over the months interest and attendance declined due to the news of internal conflicts. The final straws were the CEC decisions mentioned above:

• we realised we would never be officially recognised and even the limited material we had produced (such as a high street survey on local priorities) was unapproved and infringed trademark, etc.
• two of our most active members were ineligible for membership as they were Socialist Party members. Some of us were not prepared to tolerate their expulsions and resigned from YP in solidarity.

So last week we decided to revert back to our previous inclusive and informal local structure. We were fortunate we could preserve what we had before, but this has been a very bruising and disappointing experience. Hopefully other groups can also continue and preserve what goodwill and contacts they have made over the last few months.

Find South Cumbria Socialists on Facebook

(Previously published in Connections Newsletter issue no. 2)