Labour Democratic Network

NEC CLP section nomination and election timetable – 2012

November 24, 2011 By Peter Kenyon 1 Comment

The Labour Democratic Network understands that full details will be sent to all interested parties by Head Office in December.

Nominations for the six NEC places elected by fully paid up members under OMOV have to be submitted by 30 March 2012.

Nominees require support of own CLP and two other CLPs from two different regions, and must have been in membership 12 months.

At least three elected candidates must be women.

We are still waiting for clarification of the precise dates for the issue of ballot papers and the close of the poll.

NEC report – 1 November 2011

November 18, 2011 By Ann Black Leave a Comment

The meeting after conference is always a marathon, reviewing the state of the party and planning the year ahead. First up was Tom Watson, deputy party Chair and campaign co-ordinator, praised for his tactics in the famous Hodge Hill by-election. Tom saw his role as mobilising members, consulting on policy and raising funds. At my suggestion he included a working return address in his latest e-mail, and had already replied to 500 messages. I said again that members want doorstep ammunition, visible leadership and rapid rebuttal of Tory lies. Others added hope in tough times: pensioners are losing part of their winter fuel allowance, the council tax freeze will cost more jobs, youth unemployment is at record levels and Labour cannot be neutral as public service workers defend their modest pensions.

The critical battle-grounds next year will be London, with the mayoral and assembly elections, and Scotland, where good council results would help to derail the independence bandwagon. Two weeks earlier the NEC’s organisation committee agreed to devolve many powers to the Scottish party, and authorised local organisation around Scottish rather than Westminster constituencies. This is the clear will of Scottish members, and I have asked only that the NEC is kept informed of developments.

Unmusical Chairs

Meanwhile the whole country is in the throes of the boundary review. In most regions Labour, working with MPs and local parties, has developed a united response to the initial proposals, but may have to adapt as other parties make submissions. The picture should be clearer by autumn 2012. Careers are at stake and the NEC wished to support MPs through traumatic times ahead, as well as constituency parties which will re-form on new boundaries from January 2013. Of course Labour is not the only party affected, and insecurity was thought to be fuelling rebellions. If Tory MPs have to compete with each other, better to keep their activists happy than try to please David Cameron.

A few more constituencies will be able to choose parliamentary candidates in the New Year and feedback from early selections is welcome, so we can modify procedures if necessary. Keith Vaz regretted that no ethnic minority candidates had yet been selected, and I am concerned that there are far more male than female applicants, making it hard to draw up gender-balanced shortlists. However these are opposition-held seats, meaning years of hard slog with no guarantee of reward, unappealing to those wanting a fast track. Last- minute retirements in plum seats will attract more interest.

Committees and Conferences

The meeting agreed the membership of subcommittees. The equalities committee, specified as 13 members, has 17, and the organisation committee now includes 27 of the 33 NEC members. (The joint policy committee has even more, but most of them don’t come to meetings.) I continue as a member of the prosperity and work policy commission, where Jennie Formby of Unite takes over as co- convenor.

This year 630 delegates from 522 constituencies attended conference, the highest since before 2002 (570 delegates from 527 constituencies) and well up from the 412 constituencies represented in 2010. Liverpool was praised for the weather and the spacious dockside site, though accommodation costs, at £70 – £100 a night, were high. As usual the biggest complaint was too little time for delegates, with only nine speakers on health, and some suggested culling videos and pre- scripted panel discussions.

Refounding Labour: Next Steps

Peter Hain and Alicia Kennedy introduced a guide to implementation which takes forward the 124 recommendations agreed at conference. This, and much other material, is available athttp://members.labour.org.uk/refoundinglabourandyou , or I can mail copies. A working group will oversee progress, with a separate group on achieving gender balance in the leadership team. New youth structures will be phased in through 2012 and 2013 and NEC Chair Michael Cashman will meet members in Northern Ireland, reporting back in March 2012. Model contracts for parliamentary candidates are being drafted, with Scotland and Wales responsible for MSPs and AMs, and European variants will be agreed in autumn 2012 together with procedures for selecting Euro-candidates.

Councillors will pay the new 2% levy from May 2012. Much heated reaction was reported, but their representatives were pleased with the improved legal services, campaign materials, training and support which this will buy. I emphasised that the new local campaign forums needed flexibility and a role in policy, particularly where there are few or no Labour councillors. In October councillors were consulted on ways of improving candidate selection, and local parties have now also been asked to comment: ideas can be sent to councillors@labour.org.uk . On the technical side membersnet will be revamped, and requests were again made for the party telephone line to be open throughout the day and evening.

Peter Hain’s top priority was to register 100,000s of supporters, building a massive database for fundraising and communication. All supporters, whether joining nationally or locally, would be checked against Contact Creator and details supplied to constituencies, and their status would be verified before a leadership election. The guide guarantees that locally-collected e-mail addresses will not be used for national spam or pleas for money, though Peter is keen to revisit this. I still have reservations, but the French experience, where nearly three million people paid a euro each to vote for the socialist presidential candidate, has caused me to think about the positive potential of wider engagement.

Parliamentary Report

Ed Miliband joined us in the afternoon. He thought the economic argument was shifting, and rising unemployment showed the need for alternatives. This was a crisis about growth, not just the deficit, and the kind of economy that we should build. Ed Balls’ five-point plan would tax bank bonuses to fund jobs for young people; invest in infrastructure; cut VAT to relieve family budgets; reduce VAT to 5% on home improvements and repairs; and give tax breaks to small businesses hiring extra workers. The St Paul’s protests showed that the system is failing, and Labour should speak out on top pay and argue for rules which reward hard-working families. Andy Burnham was attacking the Tories on the NHS, where patient experience was deteriorating and waiting times were rising. All this was well received.

Tackled on public service pensions, Ed Miliband felt that maximum pressure should be exerted before 30 November, so that if strikes went ahead it would be clear that the government was to blame. He agreed that the living wage is an idea whose time has come, and he was talking with business minister Chuka Umunna about Labour’s response to attacks on employment rights, particularly charging for employment tribunals and restricting claims for unfair dismissal. For young people Labour would cap student fees at £6,000, and review whether to restore the educational maintenance allowance.

Ed Miliband believed the Tories were alarmed about falling support among women, and this explained David Cameron’s flurry of announcements on elective Caesareans, easier adoption and allowing royal women equal succession rights. None of these would tackle women’s basic need for jobs, fair pay, public services and security for themselves and their families. Nor would they protect an estimated 25,000 women every year who suffer domestic violence but would no longer be able to get legal aid.

I asked about the mystery policy documents, launched at conference without being seen by MPs, the national policy forum or the NEC. Ed Miliband said they came from the shadow cabinet groups: he had not intended to bypass party structures, and the NEC should have been kept informed. I would hope for more of a partnership, along the lines of his wide-ranging discussions before the 2010 election.

This linked into a presentation on Partnership into Power. Liam Byrne’s New Politics Fresh Ideas exercise made four million contacts and gathered 6,000 written responses. However submissions on policy- making processes showed a degree of cynicism. Peter Hain said that some people wanted more time and comments would be accepted at http://members.labour.org.uk/policymaking up to 31 January 2012, though I suspect this is more about cutting the union share of the conference vote than addressing deeper issues. The next national policy forum will not be till summer 2012, particularly frustrating for constituency representatives who wonder they bothered. It was suggested that they could lead further consultation, but members are tired of talking about structures: they want engagement and action.

Going Forward

Harriet Harman said that it was important to blend political and organisational strategies, and others emphasised the need to work in every seat, not just the marginals. They asked for campaign materials which are straightforward but not patronising. Iain McNicol reported on the management and commercial review led by Charles Allen, and gave an update on finances. One point deserves wider publicity: the press often claim that Labour is wholly dependent on the unions, but this is because only large donations must be declared to, and published by, the electoral commission. In fact over a third of our income is from members’ subscriptions and small donations, and union funding is itself composed of a few pounds each from millions of individual levy-payers. Lies, damn lies and statistics …

And finally alert members may have noticed that e-mails from the party are now suffixed @labour.org.uk rather than @new.labour.org.uk … so we are once again plain Labour and proud of it.

Questions and comments are welcome, and I am happy for this to be circulated to members as a personal account, not an official record. Reports of meetings from July 2008 onwards are at http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/annblack, with earlier reports at www.annblack.com.

Ann Black, 88 Howard Street, Oxford OX4 3BE, 07956-637958, annblack50@btinternet.com

Refounding Labour – New Rules: an example

November 7, 2011 By David Gardner Leave a Comment

This is how the new rules could apply to the Westminster parliamentary constituency of Greenwich and Woolwich. This paper has been circulated to branches for consultation.

A new rule book was agreed at 2011 Annual Conference. While our Constituency Labour Party (CLP) objected, on the grounds that most of the changes had not been subject at all to consultation, and that we had just a few days’ notice, nevertheless they were approved and must be implemented. Key decisions for the CLP are:

Annual Meeting (AGM) Dates – under the new rules this should be held in or after May. Branch AGMs are not set down by the rules (January is deleted) but advice is they should be after elections. Currently, we have the Branch AGMs in early-mid January and the CLP AGM at the end of February. We could:

Hold Branch AGMs and CLP AGMs all in May
Hold Branch AGMs in May and the CLP AGM in June
Hold both the Branch and CLP AGMs in June

Delegate or General Meetings – Currently, we have a delegate General Committee (with delegates from Branches and affiliated organisations but we open all GCs to all members and have made a number of them all-member meetings with invites to everyone. Though any voting is by delegates only, the one exception being when we did our leadership and National Executive nominations. Two options:

We can keep the current delegate structures allowing a fair representation across all branches and affiliates, but opening meetings for wider participation and have a number of all-member meetings
We could have General Meetings only, with no delegates. The full membership would then elect the Officers and executive as well as take decisions on resolutions. Thus no delegates would be elected, and any member could attend, vote and stand. Members would be able to attend and vote at both their Branch and constituency meeting; it may therefore blur their distinctive roles.

Officers – The CLP currently has 8 Executive officers. The new rules provide for a base of just 5 with a number of co-ordinators (functional officers) though there is the option to have more Executive Officers if we choose.

Have just 5 Executive officers (Chair, Vice Chair Membership; Vice Chair Campaigns; Secretary and Treasurer of which at least two must be women
Have 6 Executive Officers (above 5 plus Equalities Officer) of which three would be women. The Equalities Officer would co-ordinate the roles currently carried out by Ethnic Minorities Officer, Women’s officer, Youth & Student officer and Disabilities officer)
Retain current 8 Exec Officers with at least 4 women. This would need approval

Co-ordinators – we need to refresh the functional officer roles as Co-ordinators. This may mean we want to rationalise the roles and rather than having job shares to have teams.

Local Campaign Forum (LCF) – The new rules replace the Local Government Committee with a re-focussed Local Campaign Forum for co-ordinating council elections, selections and liaison with the Labour Group. The CLPs in Greenwich will need to collectively determine their preferred model but in general it will meet less frequently and be much slimmer (currently 65 members altogether). The Management and Executive Committees can be replaced by a single unitary body. Options include:

A unitary LCF of 10 Party delegates (4 G&W CLP), 1 Co-op plus Group Leader and Deputy. This could be supplemented by a Borough Conference open to all Labour councillors and either all members or all CLP GC delegates which would be at least annual but possibly more frequently to help develop policy and policy commissions which would draw from the wider membership and be co-chaired by Party and group co-ordinators.
A unitary LCF of 17 Party delegates (7 G&W CLP), 2 Co-op plus leadership. Again, this could be supplemented by a borough Conference and policy commissions
A Management Committee of 39 Party delegates (16 G&W which could be 2 per BLP plus Chair and Sec); 4 Co-op and Group leadership. This would need a separate Executive.
A Management Committee broadly as currently of 55 Party delegates (22 G&W CLP) plus 5 Co-op and group leadership. Again, a separate Executive.

New NEC and what next?

October 17, 2011 By Ann Black Leave a Comment

The Changing of the Guard: Wednesday 28 September 2011

On Wednesday evening the NEC said farewell to departing colleagues and welcomed new members. I shall particularly miss Cath Speight, who without seeking the limelight has contributed an enormous amount over the years, and been loyal throughout to her party and her union; also Norma Stephenson for her work on equalities and Chair for 2010/11, Simon Wright of the socialist societies who is sadly leaving after just a year, and Chris Weldon of Unite. We are joined by Wendy Nicholls of UNISON, Susan Lewis of Community, Martin Mayer and Jennie Formby of Unite and Conor McGinn of the Labour Party Irish Society. Michael Cashman MEP was elected as Chair for the year ahead and pledged to represent all voices on the NEC, with Harriet Yeo of the TSSA as his vice-chair.

Looking Forward: After Conference

Peter Hain stressed that conference approval of Refounding Labour is the beginning, not the end of the process, and agreed that working groups should oversee implementation. There are many matters of detail: for instance moving constituency AGMs to the autumn raises questions about approving annual accounts which close in December; nominating to national committees where the deadline is usually April, and electing conference delegates, based on membership figures at 31 December. More seriously the section on Partnership in Power is still detached from reality. Better feedback has been promised so often that members will believe it when they see it. Only one meeting of the national policy forum is planned for 2011/12, following two short sessions in 2010/11, and representatives who competed for constituency seats last year must wonder why they bothered. This would only partly be compensated by giving every member a place on one of the policy commissions. And yet again the joint policy committee, supposed to steer the process, was attended by only 13 members in September, again with no departmental shadow ministers showing up.

The NEC statement to conference on Partnership in Power says: “Discussions during this consultation have focused on the need to make a reformed policy-making system more accessible and responsive to party members, with a fresh empowered annual conference with even greater democracy,. We are determined to take a new approach to policy-making with meets those objectives and will take more time to develop the details. The NEC therefore agrees to further consult between now and the end of March 2012 on how to make the policy and decision-making processes more dynamic, open and democratic with a view to taking forward proposals to the NEC next spring, ahead of conference.”

Hidden agendas

I hope this does not just mean more arguments over the union share of the conference vote, with constituency representatives shut out, because there are bigger issues at stake. Policy-making seems to have moved not only beyond the NEC but beyond the national policy forum and conference. Near the end I discovered four glossy booklets entitled “Towards a new economy”, “Britain’s role in the world”, “Restoring responsibility, strengthening our communities” and “Fulfilling the promise of Britain”.

Maybe the papers came from the elusive shadow cabinet working groups. They appear hastily compiled, with inconsistencies, identical quotes attributed to different people, and repeated paragraphs, but they make interesting reading. On defence policy there is no mention of Trident, and the document says that “our strategic position needs to be rethought and ‘smart defence’ must move from rhetoric to reality”. I may be too optimistic in hoping that this heralds real change. On the other hand I am deeply uneasy over attitudes towards immigration, with granting priority for social housing to “those who give back to their communities”, and with the repeated emphasis that people should “get out what they put in”.

What happened to “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”? Some of us are lucky in health, talent and family, others are less fortunate from the start, or they become ill, injured, or overwhelmed. The deepest silence during Ed Miliband’s speech was when he said that benefits are too easy to come by, and he was challenged at the question-and-answer session: when the sick and disabled were being hardest hit by government cuts, why did he reinforce the stereotype of all claimants as scroungers?

Recently the tabloids had a field day with a woman filmed sky- diving while she drew incapacity benefit for a bad back. Yes of course this is wrong. But what are we saying to this member: “I have a severely disabled son, and he tells me he feels guilty for being in a wheelchair. This is the first time he has used the word ‘guilty’ in the almost 20 years since he was paralysed as the result of viral encephalitis.”

Or this, from the father of a profoundly deaf 50-year-old man on disability benefit: “He got an HND in engineering, was made redundant, and has been out of work for 15 years. This has not been for want of trying, and it is not because of any limitation to a narrow range of employment; he has tried for jobs as packer and shelf-filler. He has done course after course of updating skills. People with disabilities are constantly made to feel that it is all their own fault. The Archbishop of Canterbury is quite right when he says that this causes a sense of hopelessness and despair.”

Who will stand up for them if not the Labour party? And with government intransigence driving public sector workers to ballot for strike action over pensions, the leadership urgently need to understand a little more and condemn a little less. There are serious issues about both policy and process, and a great deal to do if we are to regain power and promote a Labour vision which can convince and also inspire. I hope that we will all be able to contribute.

Questions and comments are welcome, and I am happy for this to be circulated to members as a personal account, not an official record.

Reports of meetings from July 2008 onwards are at http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/annblack, with earlier reports at www.annblack.com.

Ann Black, 88 Howard Street, Oxford OX4 3BE, 07956-637958, annblack50@btinternet.com

Conference rule change proposals – rejected

October 17, 2011 By Ann Black Leave a Comment

As these can be hard to find I’ve listed them below, with separate

percentages for constituencies and affiliates. All were rejected,

though a couple came close to 50% among CLP delegates.

1 - replace clause IV with new wording (proposed by Castle

Point, Ceredigion and Dagenham & Rainham, opposed by

the NEC because Refounding Labour showed no demand for

change). Lost with 12.4% in favour (21.1% of constituencies,

3.6% of affiliates);

2 – establish a Labour party code of ethics (proposed by South

Ribble, opposed by the NEC because standards are already

set out in codes of conduct and staff contracts). Lost with

20.1% in favour (29.6% / 10.6%);

3 – establish a charter of members’ rights (proposed by

Hyndburn, opposed by the NEC because most items are

already in the rules or guidelines). Lost with 18.1% in favour

(24.7% / 11.6%);

4 - allow CLPs to send a male delegate to conference for two

consecutive years where they cannot find a woman

(proposed by Winchester, opposed by the NEC because the

rule was amended in 2008 so that CLPs can send another

man after two years if they are still unable to find a woman.

Further change would dilute women’s representation). Lost

with 7.4% in favour (12.7% / 2.0%);

5 – debate constituency rule changes in the year that they are

submitted (proposed by Dewsbury, opposed by the NEC

because a year’s delay allows them to be considered fully.

Delegates contrasted the 15 months which the NEC

demands with the hours that they were given to digest

Refounding Labour. They were told that the rule was set in

1968 and had served the party well, though any rule which is

43 years old would normally be considered ripe for

modernisation);

The vote was lost with 28.2% in favour (44.5% / 11.9%). I’m

surprised that this made it past the conference arrangements

committee, as Lancaster & Fleetwood submitted the same

amendment last year, lost with 22.7% in favour, and

proposals cannot be brought back within three years;

6 - increase the number of NEC constituency places from six to

eight, with one representative elected from Scotland and one

from Wales (proposed by Beverley & Holderness, Stratford-

upon-Avon and Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale,

opposed by the NEC because “CLPs are already adequately

represented” and the Scottish and Welsh leaders have a

standing invitation to attend NEC meetings). Lost with 20.6%

in favour (39.5% / 1.8%).

An amendment from Rotherham, Sheffield Central and Wentworth

& Dearne to allow Young Labour group officers to contact their

own members was withdrawn, but the thrust of Refounding

Labour is towards better communication across the party, and I

hope this will be solved through other means.

Labour Democratic Network

NEC CLP section nomination and election timetable – 2012

NEC report – 1 November 2011

Refounding Labour – New Rules: an example

New NEC and what next?

Conference rule change proposals – rejected

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