A coalition of grassroots Labour Party campaigns has launched a website, Labour Campaigns Together.
Its aim is to press the Labour leadership to include left-wing policies voted through at the 21-25 September Labour conference in Brighton in its manifesto and in the actions of a Labour government.
The key policies are:
• A just transition to a decarbonised economy by 2030
• Build 100,000 social rented council homes a year
• Transition to a 32-hour working week with no loss of pay
• Protect and extend the rights of migrants
• End all forms of criminalisation of rough sleeping
• Free our unions: repeal all the anti-trade union laws
• Integrate private schools into a high-standard public education system
• Implement a comprehensive coordinated strategy for mental health.
Workers’ Liberty activists have been involved in the underlying campaigns especially through the Labour Campaign for Free Movement (LCFM) and Free Our Unions (FOU).
LCFM got policy passed in Brighton which commits Labour to “protect and extend free movement rights; guarantee the right to family reunion; close all detention centres; end the Hostile Environment; and end ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ and the discriminatory denial of social security, healthcare and housing”.
The policy also says: “Labour will extend the vote to everyone who lives here: every member of our society deserves a say in how we are governed”.
Free Our Unions has got policy through Labour conference for “repealing all the anti-union laws — not just the 2016 Trade Union Act, but also those introduced in the 1980s and 90s. They should be replaced with positive legal rights, including strong rights to strike and picket, such as in solidarity with other workers and over political issues (e.g. the climate crisis)”.
We also support the other campaigns involved, and were active, for example, in strengthening the “Green New Deal” policy passed in Brighton.
So far the Labour leaders have been silent on most of these policies. On free movement, they have said explicitly that still want a work visa system. On union rights, they have limited themselves to promising the repeal of the Trade Union Act 2016 (not of the Thatcher laws).
As of yet, Labour Campaigns Together is only a website and an e-list which supporters can sign up to. We hope it can be developed into a more active on-the-ground campaign.
