Workers' Liberty

Over the weekend of 10– 11 May the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty held its annual conference. The event was lively and vibrant, with a lot of newer and younger comrades contributing to the debates and discussions. We used the time to assess our previous year’s work and plan our future work.

On the Saturday, discussions were held on the world economy, workers’ representation and anti-fascist work. Comrades debated the exact extent to which the Labour Party will cease to be a channel for working class politics should the Bournemouth rule changes not be overturned. We also identified preparing to stand a propaganda candidate in the coming general election and mobilising for the anti-Red, White and Blue festival demonstration as key activities in the coming months.

On Sunday we had debates on Iran and Iraq which centred on whether we should adopt “Troops out” or “Troops out now” as one of our slogans. The motions and amendments which supported these additions were defeated. All sides of the discussion agreed the need to step up our solidarity work with workers in Iran and Iraq.

The other major debate on the Sunday was in the session on climate change and the environment. It focused on whether we should oppose the building of nuclear power stations. Those arguing that we are no more specifically opposed to nuclear than any other source of power, were defeated.

The conference elected a new 18-person national committee for the year ahead that will direct and lead our work. Three comrades also joined the organisation and one former comrade rejoined.

Regardless of our differences, conference provided comrades with a series of comprehensive policies and a clear line of march for our work in the year ahead.