Are Your Party’s days on Liverpool council numbered?

Party‘s future faces fresh questions after deputy leader quits.

Questions have emerged over the future of Your Party Liverpool on the city council after one of its councillors resigned from the party just weeks after the local branch was launched.

The resignation from Your Party of Cllr Sam Gorst, deputy leader of the Liverpool group, was revealed in Skwawkbox at the Canary last week, and came following a series of internal disputes within the wider fledgling political movement.

Gorst was one of three Liverpool councillors representing Your Party alongside Cllr Alan Gibbons and Cllr Lucy Williams. Until his resignation, he also sat on the central executive committee of the national party. Cllr Gorst’s resignation from the party does not affect his position as a local councillor and he continues to represent Garston ward.

The trio of councillors previously coalesced as part of a larger group of Liverpool Community Independents, which was formed back in 2022 amidst divisions within Liverpool’s ruling Labour group over the council’s budget, as well as other issues. Liverpool’s all-out elections in 2023 reduced the group to three councillors, who adopted the Your Party banner in October 2025.

The Monitor contacted group leader Cllr Alan Gibbons to ask what Cllr Gorst’s departure from the party meant for the future of the group.

Cllr Gibbons told the Monitor: ‘Sam has just taken the decision to resign from Your Party so we will consider our next steps in due course.’

However, he stressed that the three councillors would stay working together, saying: ‘The three of us are continuing as a group on the council’, adding, ‘our principles remain the same.’

Asked whether that could mean returning to the Liverpool Community Independents name, Cllr Gibbons said: ‘We will sit down and decide whether to revert to the Liverpool Community Independents title and make a statement as soon as we have discussed it in full.’

If the group does decide to abandon the Your Party banner, the party would no longer be represented on Liverpool Council. A council spokesperson said they were unaware any formal notification of changes to political groupings had been received.

The resignation also throws a spotlight on wider tensions in Your Party at a crucial stage in its development. There have been a series of disputes within the party’s leadership and executive committee over governance, internal democracy and organisational direction.

Launched nationally by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana as a more socialist alternative to Labour, the party is still in the process of building local organisations across the country and has a launch date of July 5 listed on its website for the Liverpool branch. Cllr Gorst referred to this launch in his resignation letter, saying it had been poorly attended. The Monitor contacted Your Party for clarification about the Liverpool branch’s formal launch but has not received a response.

Your Party experienced multiple disagreements over how it should be governed including when it was announced, as well as leading up to and during its first faltering national membership launch in summer 2025, when two of its leading figures, MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, became embroiled in a public spat after the latter opened up membership before agreement had been reached with fellow Independent Alliance MPs. The dispute also ultimately led two MPs to distance themselves from the project.

The would-be party patched and mended, becoming an officially registered political party in September 2025, before holding its first ever conference in Liverpool in November. Sultana boycotted the first day over issues to do with dual membership, which delegates later voted to allow, alongside the creation of a member-elected central executive committee to drive the party’s strategy and policies as part of a collective leadership model adopted instead of having a party leader.

In his resignation statement, Cllr Gorst said he had become disillusioned with the national party’s internal governance, citing factionalism, a lack of transparency and what he described as ‘an increasing pattern of unilateral decision-making by a small number of individuals’.

Cllr Gibbons insists the three councillors in his group will continue working together while deciding what banner they will sit under in future, although what exactly that will be remains, for the moment, not entirely certain.

One thing perhaps a little more certain though is that Your Party’s presence in Liverpool, the home of its inaugural conference, has just got a bit more complicated.

The Monitor has approached Cllr Gorst and Your Party for comment.

a moment of your time … 

Thank you for taking the time to read the Mersey Monitor, we think that makes you very much a part of what we’re doing here and we’re grateful for you supporting local public interest journalism on Merseyside.

The Monitor is resolutely not for profit, not for paywalls and not for adverts either. To help keep us going, because it all costs time and money to put together, we’re relying on you, dear readers, to help fund us.

Every penny we receive goes towards making the Monitor sustainable and we do need a bit of help. We’re in the process of setting up as a CIC, and registering alone costs over £100 - could you spare a quid or two to help us get off the ground?

You can make a one off donation by clicking here

You can set up a regular donation by clicking here

Perhaps you could spare a moment to share one of our stories and help spread the message the Monitor is in town?

Or maybe you have ideas for stories we should be looking at? Let us know on 07442 402 023 or at themerseymonitor@outlook.com.