The Canary has received an extensive cache of communications between Your Party and MOU Operations. The latter are the company at the centre of a growing storm around ownership of membership data. Currently, certain factions within the new left-wing party are presenting MOU Operations and its directors as responsible for the chaos. Legal action has been threatened as figures within Your Party claim that MOU Operations are not handing over the data of members who have attempted to join the fledgling party.
However, the cache of emails seen by the Canary consistently and repeatedly demonstrates that Your Party’s public narrative is incorrect. In fact, the emails, WhatsApp messages, and internal timelines leaked to us prove that Your Party have actively been blocking MOU Operations from resolving this fiasco. As a result, hundreds of thousands of ordinary members desperate for political change have been left in limbo. And, the accusations and legal threats from Your Party figures against the directors behind MOU Operations have taken a considerable toll.
MOU Operations: what’s happened?
MOU Operations Ltd was originally set up in April 2025, with the involvement of Jeremy Corbyn. Its purpose was to be an umbrella group for local independent groups and councillors. It led to the formation of what is now known as Your Party, but has always been distinct from it. Originally, all involved parties – including the now-six independent MPs along with Corbyn’s team and, notably, Karie Murphy – that Corbyn and Zarah Sultana would co-lead a new political party. This agreement was made in July 2025.
However, it is important to note that when Your Party was launched none of the directors of MOU Operations – Jamie Driscoll, Beth Winter, and Andrew Feinstein – were involved in its set up. However, these directors have revealed to the Canary that behind the scenes, all donations given to Your Party were linked to a payment system that sent the money to a bank account owned by MOU Operations. This is despite the people now leading Your Party having no such agreement in place with them – and Driscoll, Winter, and Feinstein were not involved in this happening.
Further, in August 2025 Your Party’s own internal advice from 22 August, as seen by the Canary, set out that in order for Your Party to access the membership data and associated funds held by MOU, they would have to change ownership, and directorship, of the company. In other words, legal requirements mean that MOU are not permitted to simply hand over the relevant data and money to Your Party: a process must be followed, and Your Party have been well aware of this.
Your Party’s membership chaos
Then, the situation went nuclear.
On 18 September Your Party was thrown into chaos with the launch of a membership system by Zarah Sultana. Corbyn and his advisors immediately declared this launch to be unauthorised and an illegal data breach of member’s information. As a result, around 25,000 people have been in limbo since – not least because of mixed messages coming from Your Party.
Having reviewed the documents passed on to the Canary, we can verify that MOU Operations had no involvement whatsoever in either the launch of a separate membership system from Sultana, or the rebuke from Corbyn’s team. However, because of the structural business set up already in place, the company then became legally responsible for all donations. At the time, the directors – Driscoll, Winter, and Feinstein – contacted Corbyn and reiterated that they had no involvement in the launch triggered by Sultana. Corbyn duly acknowledged this.
Then, several Your Party figures began to publicly smear both Zarah Sultana and MOU Operations over the launch of the separate portal. The directors of the company were accused of setting up the portal unilaterally. This was not the case.
Whilst this public spat continued, Your Party then moved to launch a second membership system on 24 September. This is in spite of the fact that advisors running the yet to be formed party knew that until a legal agreement was in place between it and MOU Operations, the latter could not hand over the existing membership data. Some within Your Party once again blamed MOU Operations for the situation.
Behind the scenes, Driscoll, Winter, and Feinstein have been trying desperately to clear up this mess.
Explosive correspondence
The Canary has seen all correspondence between the MOU directors and Your Party, and can confirm that MOU have been trying to hand over all data and money since 29 September. This approach is exactly what Your Party’s own internal guidance recommended back in August. However, in spite of MOU’s repeated attempts to legally hand over all data, those running Your Party have failed to:
Communicate with MOU directors as to why they’re not following their own internal guidance.Agree to begin the simple legal process for handing over the data.
And, whilst this has been happening internally, Your Party figures have publicly been chastising MOU for not handing over members data.
For example, MOU Operations’ directors had one-to-one communications with Corbyn. He acknowledged receipt of an email, seen by the Canary, on 29 September from MOU Operations asking to hand over the company to Your Party. Officials from Your Party did not respond to this request for over a week.
Then on 7 October Marion Roberts, treasurer of Your Party, told the MOU directors in writing that they must accept the cost and liabilities for the membership system fiasco. This is in spite of the fact that the directors had nothing to do with the creation of the second membership portal. Roberts made it clear that if they did not hand over the money and data, as well as accept any legal liability, they would be subject to “public condemnation.” Roberts refused to accept MOU’s position that legal and GDPR requirements meant that a certain process had to be followed.
Public chaos
Then, whilst discussions reached on impasse, Corbyn spoke to Feinstein on 15 October over the phone. During this conversation, Corbyn agreed to take control of MOU Operations. But, this agreement was never actioned by Your Party. MOU Operations then emailed Your Party on 17 October. In the email, seen by the Canary, the directors once again offer to transfer MOU Operations over to Your Party.
By 23 October, no one from Your Party had responded to this email. MOU Operations had also repeatedly tried to make contact with the four other independent MPs – yet none of them directly responded. On 26 October, Sultana agreed to become the sole director of MOU Operations. But then, Your Party put out the following statement:
Important announcement for Your Party members who signed up on the 18th September portal promoted by Zarah
Please transfer your membership to our portal now using this link: https://t.co/M1n8ZyFKw7
More details below
pic.twitter.com/bARVGpsaDi
— Your Party (@thisisyourparty) October 26, 2025
Then, on 27 October, despite no internal communication with MOU Operations since 15 October, Your Party makes a public statement followed by an email to 800,000 people claiming:
Over the past month, we have done everything possible to secure the transfer of your membership data. Both Zarah and Jeremy, along with Shockat, Adnan, Ayoub and Iqbal, have made written requests to MOU for the transfer to happen.
As detailed above, this is not true. Whilst Your Party had sporadically contacted MOU to demand the data, they did not engage with any of the legal and practical requirements necessary to hand over the data. As such, the claim that they have done “everything possible” is verifiably untrue. Yet since then, Your Party has been briefing the corporate media to the contrary – seemingly with the aim of smearing Driscoll, Winter, and Feinstein.
And now, the fiasco that is playing out on social media is continuing apace:
The MOU must transfer the money to https://t.co/MZZWdO2YKZ immediately from the 800 thousand people who want to build an honest and fair party. https://t.co/OAIc5CHzDK
— Laura Alvarez (@LauraAlvarezJC) October 29, 2025
MOU Operations responds
One legitimate question amongst this saga is: why did MOU Operations not just refund the membership money to people who had signed up, and paid to do so?
If MOU Operations took this approach, it would have cost more than the initial membership fee once card charges and payment platform commissions are taken into account. Under company law, this would make MOU Operations immediately insolvent, and the directors personally liable for unknown costs that could total tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
It is hardly surprising the MOU directors did not do this. They were not involved in the launch of the membership system. In fact, they have not been involved in setting up or running Your Party at all since before its launch, a fact made clear in their statement on 20 September – distancing themselves from either faction.
In a statement they said:
the company we are responsible for has repeatedly been used without our agreement.
The Canary has seen emails and WhatsApp messages from the MOU directors warning about inadequate governance since the very day Your Party was announced. For example, they discovered unpaid invoices charged to MOU Operations without their approval.
To add insult to injury, Your Party sources briefed journalists that:
the money is being held onto for political leverage.
This makes no sense, since MOU Operations has been trying to hand over everything for over a month:
It’s a shame that an inaccurate statement has been leaked to a former Sun journalist. The MOU directors were already in the process of transferring ownership and all of the resources of MOU, and that legal process is now nearing completion.
I am taking on the role of director…
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) October 29, 2025
Your Party: whose party?
The Canary approached Your Party for comment. A spokesperson told us:
This biased report is a mixture of falsehoods and misdirections.
Your Party’s bizarre and frustrating refusal to work with MOU in order to receive their own data is repeatedly verified throughout documents seen by the Canary. Directors from MOU cannot be expected to take on personal and business liability for processes that they have had no involvement with. Whether or not Your Party advisors understand company law or GDPR regulations is unclear. And, in simple terms the directors from MOU could not legally just hand over the membership data and money without following the proper procedure. Internal documents seen by the Canary verify this fact.
MOU directors have repeatedly offered to resign from the company in order to make Your Party leaders the directors of the company. Doing so would have given Your Party full control of the data. It’s worth repeating that MOU did not seek out the membership data. That was, instead, thrust upon the company without the directors agreement.
As of 30 October, Zarah Sultana has assumed directorship of MOU, and Driscoll, Winter, and Feinstein have all resigned from MOU.
Featured image via the Canary
By Steve Topple
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