On 6 September, Your Party’s Zarah Sultana spoke at an event in Newcastle, alongside Majority’s Jamie Driscoll. After an inspiring event where Sultana got a standing ovation from a packed room excited about the efforts to create a new mass party on the left, the Canary sat down to speak with the independent MP.

Zarah Sultana: no ifs, no buts over trans rights

Amid intense debate online surrounding trans rights, Zarah Sultana made it clear in her Newcastle speech that support for the trans community is a must in the new party. And in a joint interview with Driscoll after the event, we asked Sultana to elaborate further.

She told us:

it’s really important that, from the outset, we are loud and proud about the values that we have. Otherwise, what’s the point? If we’re not proudly saying we’re anti-racist, we’re supportive and pro-LGBT, there is no space for transphobia…

She added:

If we are going to change society for everyone, we have to centre the most marginalised people.

For that reason, she said:

there can’t be any kind of questions about our position on trans rights. And we need to make sure that everyone feels safe, everyone feels welcome in shaping this party. And that’s really important.

Members will decide on policy, but “defending marginalised people” must be at the core

Below is Zarah Sultana’s full comment on the issue:

Policy will be passed by our members and it will be done democratically. But I think it’s really important that, from the outset, we are loud and proud about the values that we have. Otherwise, what’s the point? If we’re not proudly saying we’re anti-racist, we’re supportive and pro-LGBT, there is no space for transphobia, we will stand in complete defence of migrants’ rights and fight fascists, we are internationalists, we’re pro-workers’ rights. If I went through the whole list, we could be here for quite a while. But those are our values when we say we are socialists, when we are fighting for left-wing politics, and therefore there shouldn’t be any denying of that.

And I think, when that is challenged, and where people are actually opposing those values and those principles of defending marginalised people and defending their right to exist and their right to identify, I think we need to come out and say ‘that is not who we are and that is not the party that we’re building’.

Trans people, like I said during the conference, have the worst outcomes when it comes to housing, when it comes to health, when we look at suicide rates. And if we are going to change society for everyone, we have to centre the most marginalised people and, therefore, there can’t be any kind of questions about our position on trans rights – and we need to make sure that everyone feels safe, everyone feels welcome in shaping this party. And that’s really important.

We’ll be sharing the rest of our coverage of Majority’s Newcastle event over the course of this week, including the rest of our interview with Sultana and Driscoll.