One effect of Theresa May’s decision to call a June election has been the suspension of normal CLP (constituency Labour party) meetings – although campaign-planning meetings are still being held. This has had a major effect on the scheduling of delegate selections for Labour’s 2017 annual Conference in Brighton.
Many CLPs had been planning to hold their selections in their April or May meetings, but this cannot now take place. As a result, the SKWAWKBOX understands that Labour’s HQ has extended the deadline for applications to the 7th of July.
Most CLPs will therefore have only a single monthly meeting to finalise their delegates between the result of the General Election and the deadline.
The Labour right has already been organising and will be hoping to take most left-wing members by surprise in order to monopolise the selections. Many right-wingers have not let the small matter of a General Election divert them from their planned attempt to seize control of future leadership nominations and elections – and they will be heartened by their apparent success in replacing many outgoing right-wing MPs with more right-wing MPs.
It is essential that Labour’s left is not caught off guard.
This autumn’s Conference will be the battleground for the conflicting aims and ambitions of the left and right wings of the party. The left knows it is vital to secure the McDonnell Amendment to change the nomination threshold for leadership candidates in future elections, to ensure that Labour’s huge left-wing majority always has a candidate worth its vote.
The right-wing wants to defeat the Amendment in order to be deprive the majority of members of a candidate worth their support – but that’s not the limit of their ambition.
Labour’s right is also trying to return leadership elections to the electoral college system in which the votes of a couple of hundred MPs are worth as much as the votes of Labour’s more than 500,000 members. The system was abandoned under Ed Milband and made possible the election of the hugely popular Jeremy Corbyn.
This means that Labour members who support the vision of Corbyn and his team cannot afford to focus only on the General Election campaign but need also to plan and organise to ensure that their clear majority in the membership is prepared and at their CLP meeting(s) that take place between 9 June and the delegate deadline.
Whether Labour win or lose the General Election, this battle must not be neglected. A loss is likely to trigger another ill-advised leadership challenge and a win would be an opportunity for the right to try to seize control of the Conference and of the party’s direction while most members celebrate and look outwards to the restoration of a UK no longer at the mercy of the corrupt Tories.
So, if you support the party’s direction under Corbyn there is no option but to roll your sleeves up that little bit further and – somehow – carve out additional time to meet, discuss, plan and organise in readiness for the period after the General Election to ensure that your CLP sends as many delegates as possible and all of good-will toward Corbyn’s vision.
To fail to do so will be a disaster for the country, as well as for the Left. Here are some tips on how to get it done.
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Reblogged this on Sid's Blog and commented:
Corbyn has caused the membership to be galvanised
Let his legacy be, the long-term re-democratisation of the workings of Labour infra-structure.
Corbyn is the start of a
Democratic Socialist Labour Party, fit for the 2020s
Very difficult for new members to know who’s who amongst other members and who to organise with/canvass support from.
Reblogged this on dainagregory.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
We on the LEFT of the LABOUR PARTY who elected our LEADER JEREMY CORBIN, should not let the SMALL MINORITY on the RIGHT dictate the voting PRINCIPALS that we hold dearly in a TRUE SCOTIALIST WORKING PARTY!
THAT AS FOUGHT HARD AGAINST RIGHT THINKING MINORITIES WHO ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN FEATHERING THIER OWN NESTS!
Which in the short and the long term works only against us and those who don’t vote.
Those people now have a very good excuse to get off their arses vote LABOUR LEFT to keep the aforementioned out of power!
Jeremy and his cabinet on the LEFT are finally changing the face of politics for the better and moving away from the reason these people above don’t vote because of there all the same!
NO MORE EXCUSES GET OUT AND VOTE FOR CHANGE!
When we win the election that is the start not the end of our problems. What the right is expecting is that having won, many of the grass roots supporters will be lulled into a false sense of security. Membership will drop. Less people in the country watching what goes on. Right wing Labour back benchers will join the Tories in making government impossible for Corbyn.
It’s vital we keep our membership engaged, such as reaching out to people with informal social gatherings outside the political mill, such as the quiz nights. I can remember when every village of any size had a labour club, or a working men’s club (men usually in those days) or a union club, all much the same thing on the political spectrum.
Hi. I am fairly disabled both physically and mentally, so I cannot attend my local Labour and UNITE meetings on the Isle of Wight and in Portsmouth respectively. I send email apologies for absence but these seem not to be noticed. Can you suggest how best I can represent the views of your email as my own to both branches please?
Keep up the good work.
Barry
Hi Barry, it’s one of the major weaknesses of Labour’s rules that they don’t allow attendance/vote by proxy. Do you have a friend in the CLP who could attend on your behalf and read out your message, for example in the ‘any other business’ section?
Alternatively, if you could get a CLP regular to submit it as a motion on your behalf that would get it onto the CLP’s official business.
Reblogged this on perfectlyfadeddelusions.