Splitters! First splinter group defects from Jeremy Corbyn's Your Party

As predictably as night following day, Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party – founded just 11 short months ago – has already seen its first splinter movement peel off and form its own party.

250 delegates representing branches of Corbyn’s fledgling movement across England, Scotland and Wales have announced they are leaving to form the Socialist Federation in protest at the former Labour leader’s inertia.

Delegates including representatives of London, Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester have left the party which, despite boasting a membership of 55,000 and having claimed its aim was forming a government, failed to run candidates for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and English councils last month. A YouGov poll earlier this year saw it register zero percent.

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A spokesperson for the Socialist Federation, Raz O’Connor, said: “The Socialist Federation brings together people from all over the country who have been building socialist groups in their local areas.

“Some did so as part of the wave of enthusiasm that met the announcement of Your Party last year, when 800,000 people expressed an interest in a new political force that was explicitly socialist.

“The enthusiasm around Your Party was ruined by the actions of Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, but we have learned we don’t need celebrity politicians to organise things for us. It is the grassroots activists building power in working class communities and workplaces that have always been the heart of the socialist movement, not bureaucratic leaders.”

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The new party apparently plans a national conference on June 28 to finalise its structure and policy proposals. Splitters!

Meanwhile, Your Party remains with just one member of the House of Commons – Zarah Sultana – as Corbyn, despite having been elected its parliamentary leader, still hasn’t registered his affiliation with the relevant authorities and sits as an independent.

It means that, in Commons terms, it technically still doesn’t exist. A party generally needs at least two MPs elected at the previous general election – not formed after it – to be recognised for parliamentary rights such as PMQs questions, committee seats and, crucially, funding in so-called Short Money. And Sultana herself has been comprehensively sidelined after making the error of fielding candidates against Corbyn’s preferred picks for the party’s central executive committee, and losing.

Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!