Labour For A New Democracy

Submitting a motion to Conference is one of the most important things a CLP can do. It gives ‘ordinary’ members a voice in the formulation of national party policy. It provides an opportunity for members to widen their focus beyond the organisational matters that can dominate discussion for much of the rest of the year. With the above in mind High Peak CLP decided to open up the process of choosing a motion beyond the confines of a General Committee meeting. Having invited branches to submit a motion ( three out of five branches did) it then agreed to hold a ballot of all 1500+ CLP members. We used the Party’s Anonyvoter account, set up during the pandemic .Members were invited to put the motions in order of preference and given a week to do so. In addition to receiving an email containing the text of all three motions ( and the name of the branch submitting it) an accompanying email included the arguments in favour of prioritising each of them ( 250 words maximum ) There was also an opportunity to attend a Zoom discussion meeting on the motions ( not many came). Two of the motions were of the ‘ model’ variety. One from the Labour Campaign For A New Democracy in favour of Proportional Representation, another from the Labour Campaign for Council Housing. A third, about pornography, had been drafted by one of our delegates to Labour Party Women’s Conference, disappointed that the lengthy motion about Violence Against Women and Girls ,which LWC is submitting to Conference, makes no reference to the issue. The ballot produced a decisive outcome, with 60% giving their first preference to the L4ND motion, which the CLP EC will now endorse as the High Peak CLP motion to Conference . Around 15% of members took part in the ballot (173), disappointing perhaps but still more than eight times the number who would otherwise have chosen the motion at last week’s delegate based GC. Labour’s campaign for a new democracy should extend to reforming its own democratic procedures, using 21st century IT to increase membership participation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Facebook Post on GPEW and Global Greens

  WE NEED GLOBAL GREENS TO HELP LEAD A MOVEMENT FOR GLOBAL ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE AND ECOLOGICAL EMERGENCY The outcome of COP28 was as unsatisfactory as we all expected. Although there was agreement (at last !) to transition from fossil fuels this only applies to energy generation. There remains no firm commitment to stop using fossil fuels for transportation, construction, food production or anything else, and no commitment even to encourage people to move away from  a meat-based diet. Time is fast running out. In the meantime, Greens in the UK and elsewhere continue to focus on electoral advancement, based largely on a commitment to mitigate the worst effects of the Climate and Ecological Emergency on their own localities, regions and nation states. Such an approach is an unsatisfactory response to the scale of the emergency and imminent global catastrophe. We would like to see greens leading governments across the planet. Realistically we know this isn’t going to happen i
Read more

Owner Occupation for All Who Want It

There is a housing crisis in the UK,which has various components.  There is clearly a need to provide adequate temporary accommodation to all those who need it. At present local authorities only have a duty to accommodate those considered to be in ‘priority need’, which usually means they have dependent children, are fleeing violence or who have significant disabilities or health problem. As if being homeless wasn’t priority enough !   Beyond the agreed need to provide adequate ‘ emergency’ accommodation there is a need to substantially increase the supply of ‘ social housing’, provided by local councils and housing associations, and offering relatively secure tenancies at reasonable rents. The significant decline in the quantity of social housing since Thatcher’s Right to Buy legislation in the 1980’s has meant that more and more people, including families with young children, have to rent from private landlords, with no security of tenure and little protection from poor standards of
Read more

Review of Nomad Century by Gaia Vince

The author begins her clear and concise book with a stark warning.  “People are finally beginning to face up to the climate emergency. However, while nations rally to reduce their carbon emissions, and try to adapt at-risk places to hotter conditions, there is an elephant in the room: for large portions of the world, local conditions are becoming too extreme and there is no way to adapt”.  She then offers a solution which also addresses an increasingly toxic issue in politics, and in doing so provides hope rather than despair.  Vince  summarises the current reality of run-away climate change as others have done, and agrees with the need for economies and lifestyles to change in order to limit the extent of the coming catastrophe. She concludes however that even with maximum mitigation – renewable energy, changes to transportation and to the way food is produced and buildings constructed – the most realistic scenario is that global temperatures will rise by 3-4 degrees centigrade by the
Read more