Vital weeks for McDonnell campaign

Submitted by Anon on 7 April, 2007 - 11:03

By colin foster

The rumour now is that Tony Blair will stand down as leader on around 9 May. There will then only be a few days for candidates to collect the 45 nominations from Labour MPs necessary to get on the ballot paper for the new Labour leader; three weeks for further campaigning; and two weeks for the actual ballot.

So time is short now for the drive to promote rebel Labour MP John McDonnell as a left-wing candidate.

Supporters will be active at two major union conferences between now and 9 May, the Unison health sector conference on 22-24 April and the National Union of Teachers conference over the Easter weekend.

Neither can have direct input into the election. NUT is not affiliated to the Labour Party. Unison is, but its rules insist that all decisions about what it does in the Labour Party are made not by the regular union conferences and committees but by a separate, and quite impermeable, “Unison Labour Link” structure.

McDonnell’s best chance for new official union support in the coming weeks is the Executive meeting of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) on 11 April. CWU’s influential Broad Left has already backed McDonnell, as have the rail unions RMT and ASLEF and the firefighters’ FBU.

The priority for the coming weeks is to get the campaign message out to new people, and to make contact with as many people as we can whose political interest has been awakened, or reawakened, by the campaign, and are open to discussion about continuing socialist activity after the ballot. The Labour Representation Committee conference in October will be an important landmark in that. More on the campaign:

www.workersliberty.org/node/8048

www.john4leader.org.uk.

www.feminists4john.blogspot.comwww.socialistyouth.org.uk

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