Hornsey and Wood Green in London is Britain’s largest CLP – with a huge 4,600 members. The CLP, which operates on a branch/delegate/General Committee (GC) basis, held its AGM on Wednesday evening.
‘Grassroots Left’ members fielded a slate of candidates for the election of GC Officers – a group sharing broadly the same view about the future direction of the Labour Party. A Grassroots Left supporter told the SKWAWKBOX:
We all support Labour’s current leadership and the election manifesto. In particular, we’d like to see public services properly funded and to stop the large-scale transfer of London’s community assets to private companies.
Our candidate for Chair, Celia Dignan won by 122 votes to 38. That pattern was repeated across all the other contested posts.
I’d say the high vote we received from both longstanding and newer members reflects the success of Jeremy Corbyn and the leadership in the General Election. Labour’s manifesto was very well received by voters here.
As you probably know, In H&WG we increased Catherine West’s majority by over 10,000 to 30,738 so she now holds one of the safest Labour seats.
It was also driven by local members’ opposition to Haringey Council’s adoption of the Haringey Development Vehicle.
Celia thanked the outgoing Chair for his work and said she’d work for an inclusive party where all are welcome.
The SKWAWKBOX has seen this pattern repeated all across the country. Wherever democracy is allowed to take its course, the result is almost always the election of a majority of left-supporting CLP officers and often a ‘clean sweep’ – and the victors are eager to include everyone in the CLP in the party’s success going forward.
A clear majority of members in the party support the direction of the party under Corbyn and his team, as the result of last year’s leadership election and the recent huge win for the left-slate candidates in the CAC (Conference Arrangements Committee) election – and in today’s news, exclusively revealed by the SKWAWKBOX, that left-wing party insiders believe that left-wing delegates for this month’s annual Conference in Brighton outnumber the right by more than three to one.
The news that the largest CLP in the country – in London, where anti-democratic attempts to prevent the left taking the CLP positions its strength in numbers merits democratically have been prevalent – will be welcome news to Corbyn-supporting members across the whole UK.
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