CWU set to debate Labour Party affiliation

There are a number of other motions that Martin has missed out. They are important because they get heard before the ones Martin has highlighted;

99 This Conference instructs the incoming National
Executive Council that any Labour MP who does not support the
Early Day Motion on the part privatisation of the Post Office will not receive
either financial or physical help from the CWU and or CWU Branches in the
forthcoming general election.
South Central No.1

This motion can be supported and implies continued affiliation for now. Billy Hayes is speaking for this motion in the name of the executive..

100 Conference calls for a
full review of the Political Levy by September 2009.
Therefore conference instructs the NEC with a view to introducing a new
classification of political levy payment to enable members to continue to
pay the levy without contributing to affiliation of whichever political
party is prescribed by virtue of relevant national rule and/or conference
decision.
Conference further instruct the NEC to do this by, either introducing a
second, lower, rate of levy which would not include a contribution to any
affiliation fee, or by the “partitioning” of the political fund as is the case
in some of our sister Unions.
Eastern No.3
Eastern Regional Committee

The attraction of the proposal to many union activists would be that people who are fed up with Labour can opt out, while Labour Party supporters can stay in.

If implemented this would bring in a UNISON style split in the political fund with the threat that the union as a whole, and conference in particular, would lose control of the link to the Labour Party.

The executive are opposing with Pete Keenlyside and Billy Hayes down to speak against.

The fact that this kind of ‘compromise’ can gather support, shows that the ‘anger’ against Labour, of which so much has been made over recent years, isn’t quite the raw material for a new workers party that many have pretended it was. Backward and a-political drives, even when dressed up as support for the SSP and defiance of the New Labour machine, should have been confronted head on. The failure to realise this in the case of the FBU and RMT and instead ‘go along with the militants’ leaves those on the left who did so with absolutely no credibility now, especially when they insist that they have ‘really’ always been against disaffiliation..

102 This conference notes that the 2007 Labour
Party Conference decided to suspend its own right to vote for
or against 'contemporary' motions on policy issues. Additionally, it is noted
that they also agreed that this suspension would not continue for more than
two years without being subject to review.

This conference believes that the democratic right of constituency parties
and affiliated organisations to submit and vote on motions at the Labour
Party Conference should now be restored.
This conference agrees that it is a fundamental right for the Labour Party's
sovereign policy-making body to be able to take democratic decisions on
pressing issues of major concern to CLPs, Trade Unions and affiliated
organisations.
This conference therefore instructs the National Executive to, as a matter
of urgency, campaign through all available avenues, including the wider
Trade Union Movement, in order that Trade Unions, constituency parties
and affiliated organisations be given back their right to submit motions to
the Labour Party Conference for full debate and voting.
This conference further calls for the criteria for accepting such motions as
being in order should be broadened, so that they are not restricted to
topics involving specific 'contemporary' incidents occurring in the few
weeks immediately prior to conference.
London North Western C&C

The first paragraph of this motion points out something that has been missing from AWL discussions of the significance of the Bournemouth rule changes: I.e. the rule changes were introduced for two years on the understanding that they would then be reviewed. It is worth thinking about the context in which this review will take place. It will be after an electoral disaster when people will remember that Brown forced these rule changes through with a 'back me or sack me' ultimatum that put the union leaders in a position in which they thought, rightly or wrongly, that they had no alternative to making a humiliating climb down, swallow their pride and support rule changes they had vowed to oppose. The face saving formula they extracted from Brown that the changes would be reviewed, now provide a mechanism through which we can fight for them to be reversed.

The executive will be supporting.

Motion 103 seems to me to be the only one in line with the terms of existing AWL policy on disaffiliation as it clearly links CWU disaffiliation with proposals for working class representation. I don’t know if there will be anyone from the Awl there either speaking for or putting out material in support:

103
Conference recognises that the CWU cannot continue to support a Political Party whose Government continues to ignore the interest of our members and whose policies conflict with those of the CWU. Conference believes that Unions money spent on affiliation to the Labour Party cannot any longer be justified. Conference instructs the NEC to begin talks with other Trade Unions and Socialists in an endeavour to work towards the creation of a new political framework in order to provide genuine political representation for working people at the next election and provide an electoral alternative to the racist BNP.
Coventry

The executive are opposing with Maria Exall down to speak against the motion.