Labour Party

Unison sinks strike support at London Labour conference

At London Labour Party conference (28-29 January), the Starmerite leadership / machine let a series of leftish motions go through without opposition. The motion where they decided to fight was one supporting strikes and calling on the whole party, including elected representatives, to do so. That motion ( page 7 of motions document ) was defeated by just over 1% – 49.4 to 50.6%. It was defeated because Labour’s biggest affiliated union, Unison, actively opposed it. I haven’t checked the exact figures, but Union's delegation probably represents something like 15% of the conference. If Unison...

Labour trans rights Zoom meeting

Around 20 people participated in the online "crisis call" organised by "Labour for Trans Rights" on 3 February. Most Labour MPs abstained on the Tories anti-trans wielding of Section 35, and Keir Starmer has opposed 16-year-olds legally changing gender. L4TR is distinct from the (long-dormant) "Labour Campaign for Trans Rights" . The meeting felt like an inaugural public meeting. We discussed issues without yet collectively agreeing on concrete plans. There was disagreement (in emphasis) between those favouring a bureaucratic approach, and those more democratically-orientated. The former...

The Tories will be "weak" only if we get stronger

Keir Starmer's claim at the 25 January Prime Minister's Questions that Rishi Sunak is "hopelessly weak" reflected a favourite Labour leadership theme. The problem with the Tories is supposedly that they are weak, incompetent, and so on. Their policies serve the interests of the rich at the expense of the majority? That is played down, secondary, considered a less vote-catching comment. So a strong Tory government, competently implementing its noxious agenda, would be better? Starmer claimed that Sunak was "too weak" to deal with Nadhim Zahawi's tax evasion. Such a nonsensical idea fits well...

Glasgow Labour bars workers' leader, okays council leader who attacked workers

Shona Thomson, Glasgow workers' leader, barred from Glasgow Labour selection Presiding over a pay scheme which discriminates against women workers is no barrier to being selected as Labour candidate for election to Westminster. But being a leader of the strike which put an end the scheme does not prevent you from being disqualified at the first stage of selection. And you can be old enough to join the army and kill people – but simultaneously be too young to be selected as a Labour candidate. The decision of Glasgow Shettleston and Glasgow Provan Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) to hold...

Break Labour from the Brexit cult

Keir Starmer has now at least criticised the "Brexit purity cult ” of the Tory right. Starmer was speaking about the Brexit-related impasse in Northern Ireland. But he still wants to squash discussion within Labour of Brexit, or even of significantly modifying the Tories’ version of it. London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has pushed the other way by calling for “a pragmatic debate about the benefits of re-joining the Customs Union and the Single Market”. He made the call at a posh Mansion House dinner, not in a labour-movement meeting, and was motivated as much by concern for London-based capitalist...

“BAME Labour” erases Labour’s first MP of colour

The tiny, inactive and secretive BAME Labour grouping has been back in the spotlight, after Labour’s National Executive junked plans to create a democratic structure representing black, Asian and minority ethnic party members. To give a flavour of this “organisation”, in 2018 it had less than a thousand members, out of an estimated 70,000 party members of colour. Yet it has representation on the National Executive. A quick look at BAME Labour’s website confirms it is a non-organisation. But its “What is BAME Labour” statement is worth scanning. Generally vapid in the extreme, it says: “The...

Starmer snubs BAME members

In 2018 the Labour Party’s democracy review proposed creating new democratic structures for Labour members of colour, including a conference and national committee; and, at 2021 Labour conference, plans for that were adopted almost unanimously. After recent issues of anti-black and anti-Muslim racism in the party, as discussed in the Forde report , you’d think this would be a priority. Instead, as part of its drive against democracy, Starmer’s leadership has got the party National Executive Committee to suspend the idea of such democratic structures for “BAME” members (and disabled ones). The...

Return to meeting in person

Since lockdown in 2020, nearly all my regular labour movement meetings have stayed as wholly online affairs: Labour Party meetings, union branch meetings, union left caucuses, even many Workers’ Liberty meetings. Finally, after many false starts and technological troubles, my Labour Party has moved to hybrid meetings. I have focused on getting there in person. It has been a revelation about what we had been missing by not meeting in person. The last three years have seen a long series of defeats for the left in the Labour Party, and locally we have had dwindling attendance of zoom meetings...

The Morning Star against free movement

Keir Starmer addressed the CBI last week and said Britain needs to get off its “immigration dependency” and companies need to be weaned off “cheap labour” from oversees and to “start investing more in training workers who are already here”. This marked a big shift in Starmer’s position: in 2020, while standing for party leadership, he’d championed freedom of movement and implied he’d continue to campaign for it even after Britain left the EU. Few commentators (the exception being the i ’s Ian Dunt) seem to have noticed that Starmer’s argument made no sense: as Dunt put it: “Is the problem with...

Labour expels top union figures

Sign the statement protesting against the Labour leadership's attempt to ban Workers' Liberty here Labour’s new lead in the opinion polls has encouraged the unreconstructed Blairites who now run Keir Starmer’s office to push further to make the Labour Party ultra-safe for capitalism. Labour has expelled Andrea Egan, president of Unison, and Martin Mayer, formerly a Unite rep on Labour’s National Executive. The charges are risible: “liking” social media posts from Socialist Appeal (Egan) and Labour Against the Witchhunt (Mayer), many years ago, when (even if you think the current bans are right...

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