Ralph Miliband on Labour’s last year in opposition

But that was in 1963, sixty years ago. Due to some personal reappraisals of my politics, I have been looking at the writing of Ralph Miliband and was pointed at an article he wrote in the run up to the 1964 election, called “If Labour wins”, republished in the New Left Review. I found it worth reading to observe the parallels between then and now. Wilson’s Labour were leading in the polls, the Tories had suffered the setbacks of Suez, and the Profumo affair and replaced a popular and powerful leader with a patrician land owner who was not even an MP arguable a stalemate choice between the then two leading Tory candidates.

This article contains a number of quotes from the article, as they speak for themselves, although of course I can’t help but comment. I have collected the quotes and comments into pieces on culture and comedy, economics, foreign affairs, corruption, campaigning and hope and the Labour left. … …

Mish Raman on the NEC

Mish Raman on the NEC

Mish Raman reports on the July NEC. He talks abiut membership, the Forde Report, the NPF, Conference, and the HQ premises.

On membership, he reports that the membership figure is 385,000 (net of those in arrears) which is 3,000 up on this time last year, but 10,000 down on the quarter. We are still waiting for the end 2022 numbers; my last review, [or on Medium] quotes from an NEC report at end June 2022 as ~382,000 although I may not be treating arrears in the same way.

They are winding up the Forde Report working group, failed to present the report to the NEC and plan to issue some codes of conduct for both members and senior officers of the organisation. I mean to write a review of what they’ve done, and what they have not, and what they plan to ignore; but the papers are on my personal server as well the Labour Party’s site’s Forde Report pge.

Martin Forde, the author of the report, would seem to be unhappy as the Guardian and others summarise the report, that Party is operating a “hierarchy of racism” and the the process remains insufficiently transparent, certain and free from factionalism.  At a meeting hosted by Compass he is reported, again in the Guardian as,

The top lawyer echoed his previous comments that the Labour party must take seriously concerns of black and asian members that their complaints are not being treated as seriously as those related to antisemitism. “It’s not enough to say, ‘I’ve been on a course’, and that means I’m untouchable.”

Mish reports on the proceedings of the National Policy Forum, saying that, “The final NPF document will be available after conference.” Which is worrying  as its report has usually been published in order that CLPs can seek to amend the report at Conference; from Mish’s words this may not bet the case.

The Conference exhibition will be the biggest ever it seems. Business returns to a party of government. The conference floor will surely be smaller, as the membership has declined and they now have a cap on the number of delegates.

It seems the HQ is now in Blackfriars but is going to move again, and the next NEC may meet in Scotland.

Check out this thread at Thread Reader App page, or at the first tweet on twitter. …

Labour and pandering to racism

Labour and pandering to racism

I was published, last week, at Another Europe’s Brexit Watch site with the subtitle, “Labour is lurching to the right on immigration”. What follows below/overleaf mirrors that article, with the deadlines for the National Policy Forum interventions removed, because by the time I made this mirror, the deadlines had passed. The article looks at the Labour front bench’s reticence to speak up for migrants and the refusal to rejoin the EU’s single market, a topic on which Starmer has long term form;it also looks at the tendency to prioritise public finance and competence, over compassion and decency, studies the electoral impact of the position, and suggests what a decent immigration policy would look like. It was originally designed to encourage Labour members to canvass their NPF representatives. See below/over leaf for more, or go to the Another Europe version of the article. … …

Labour, its manifesto and the EU

Labour, its manifesto and the EU

Here is a swift call to action on Labour’s National Policy Forum, on relations with the European Union. I made an extract of the document to collect what they say. Earlier this month, Labour issued its NPF report in draft form. Members have the ability, through their local parties, to amend the this report; Labour Party members have until May 29th to notify, through their CLPs, their CLP NPF Reps of changes they want to see in the draft policy document. 

Perhaps the critical paragraph is,

An improved relationship with Europe

To deliver prosperity at home, it is vital to re-establish the UK as a trusted and reliable partner. As part of our mission for the UK to achieve the highest sustained economic growth in the G7, Labour will seek to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with Europe while maintaining its new role outside of the single market and customs union.

Labour’s NATIONAL policy FORUM dRAFT rEPORT 2023

I believe that the UK should rejoin the European Union but that a first step is that, it is necessary to rejoin the customs union and single market to alleviate and reverse the decline in economic activity and prosperity; it is now obvious to the vast majority of the UK population that this is the direction required. I also believe a failure to get the position on the EU right will jeopardise Labour’s electoral prospects.

Labour must,

1. call for a new relationship with the EU involving the adoption of the single market and customs union, including a reciprocal freedom of movement to work and that as part of this, Labour must repeal the cruel hostile environment.

2. commit to rejoin Horizon Europe and Erasmus+

3. add to the draft the recent promise to permit EU citizen/residents to vote in UK Parliamentary elections

The Labour Movement for Europe are proposing that, the Party must promise to negotiate direct access to the single market and a selective visa waiver system. We believe we must commit to the single market’s free movement of labour with no sectoral reservations but wish the LME well. We think their position will be less acceptable to the EU since their position is that the four freedoms are indivisible. To me it’s an example of our continued attachment to “Extrawurst”!


The featured image is one of mine. CC DFL 2017 BY-SA …

Crime, memes and politics

Crime, memes and politics

Over the weekend, Labour produced what it seems we must now call a meme, associating Rishi Sunak with Tory policies of being ineffective and soft on crimes against children.  This may have been in response to some disgusting things said by Braverman who wrongly sought to associate British Pakistani men with child grooming. The meme and the sub-text have repelled a number of anti-racism, pro-migrant activists and almost certainly some ethnic minority voters if you want to see more of the debate then it’s easy enough to find.

The rest of this article, overleaf, looks at Labour's response, at similar responses in the past, and finish by examining the complexity of the issues and the expertise available to move beyond abuse and slogans. ...

Starmer’s radicalism?

Starmer’s radicalism?

Will Hutton, the author of “The State we’re in” (1996), has written in the Observer, and article entitled “Ignore the detractors – Keir Starmer is a radical who can transform the country“.

I find this drastically over-optimistic; the demand expansion of £28bn over 5 years is not a lot and is less than we used to get from the EU’s Horizon. The Labour opposition, are flirting with QMT and have a dreadful view on policing, protest and a whole bunch of civil liberty issues, and that’s before we start on immigration. Even when they come close to innovative decency, such as on pre-crime, someone pulls them back. In terms of building a progressive government, it’s like Dave Allen’s journeys to Dublin, you don’t want to start from here! I look at the promises on constitutional reform, growth & energy, nationalisation and economic planning, demand management, workers’ rights and crime. … …

Scottish politics

Scottish politics

The New Statesman has a look at Scottish politics where most importantly to me Chris Deerin suggests that neither of the likely candidates to become leader of the SNP can unite the party and effectively lead Scotland and that the rapid collapse of the SNP vote is likely.

In my article, Labour & Devolution, I argued that in order to win seats in Scotland, Labour needs to address “the constitutional question” with sensitivity; it seems from this, that this may not be so. Although Andrew Marr, again in the Statesman, seems to agree with me.

It is a commonly held belief that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

Starmer and Sarwar seem to be ready to give nothing other than Union to the Scottish people and they may get away with it. …

On Labour Conference representation for CLPs

On Labour Conference representation for CLPs

At Conference 2022, the rules on CLP representation was changed and this will impact representation at regional conferences too.

This is Rule, C3.I.1.B which now says, (non-italics is the new text, strikethrough is deleted,)

Delegates duly appointed by CLPs to the number of one delegate for the first 749 individual members in the constituency or part thereof paying their membership dues as of 31 December in the previous year, and one further delegate for every additional 250 individual members in the constituency or part thereof. No CLP shall be represented by more than 6 delegates in any given year. CLPs must also have paid any outstanding insurance premiums and other levies due before their delegation shall be accepted. To increase the representation of women at Party conference, at least every second delegate from a CLP shall be a woman; where only one delegate is appointed this must be a woman at least in every other year. In a year where a CLP is required to send a female delegate, following a male delegate in the preceding year, but is unable to find one, they will not be entitled to send a man as delegate. In the following year, permission may be granted to send a male delegate if they demonstrate to the conference arrangements committee that they have made every effort to seek a woman delegate.

Labour Rules C3.I.1.B

Paragraph C, the next rule says, bold is my emphasis.

Where the individual women’s membership in a constituency is 100 or more, an additional woman delegate may be appointed. Where the individual Young Labour membership in a constituency is 30 or more an additional delegate under the age of 27 may be appointed.

Labour Rules C3.I.1.C

I say, the woman and youth delegates are additional, so the maximum delegation size is 8, , which a CLP become entitled to at 2000 members, if they have 100 women and 30 young people. Also note that the representation rule is mathematically one delegate per 250 members.

This, “at least every second delegate from a CLP shall be a woman” is nonsense, the number of women to be elected depends on whether the number to be elected is odd, or not, and whether the first delegate elected is a woman or not.

Source: CAC 1/2022

You might like to see, Labour Conference: Delegate &-member power which looks at how representative the hand vote is, and Delegates to Conference, which explores the meaning of the conference representation rule in terms of gender quotas, both articles on my wiki. …