Labour’s Housing Policy

Labour’s Housing Policy

At #lab17, new policy on housing was passed, including most dramatically the promise to ballot existing tenants and leaseholders before destroying current social housing stock. The text of the motion, Composite 5, is posted below with a YouTube clip from Jeremy Corbyn’s Leaders speech in which he refers to the new policies. …

Godalming Three

I have now spoken to one of the Guildford Three. They were expelled for organising a public meeting to explore a common/shared candidate. The General Committee had voted to explore the possibility of a “Progressive Alliance” candidate. A public meeting was organised, the three Labour organisers were expelled. A candidate was imposed. In response, the General Committee voted a zero budget for the SW Surrey Campaign and donated what they would have spent to their nearest marginal, Ealing Central. Most of SW Surrey CLP’s leadership travelled to support Labour candidates in other seats.

Steve Williams, after his expulsion, nominated Louise Irving, the NHAP candidate. As he says, once expelled the rules have no power.

The three people expelled are all Corbyn supporters, of course, and leading activists in the CLP.

On one hand, you can see how a beleaguered head office, gearing up for an election they expected to be smashed in, would have had little time to deal with this in a sensitive fashion, but they are so used to getting away with it, that they roll out the old rule 2.I.4.B again. …

Longevity

I have installed the wordpress broken links plugin on several of my blogs. I am sort of fascinated in how many they generate on the first run. Obviously the wayback machine is of some help, but I remember taking the decision, on advice, that using hyperlinks was better, morally and technically than leeching the content. I don’t think either of us expected my little bliki to outlast some of the resources I was linking to. …

Runaway

Someone pointed me at this article by Alex Nunns in Red Pepper, “The Labour conference that the media failed to report”, I think he catches what happened well. I have bookmarked it on Diigo, and highlighted two quotes.

This was a conference full of conflicting dynamics, but with an overarching story of left delegates gradually asserting themselves as they learned the ropes…..

Having organised for months in advance of contentious votes over rule changes, many grassroots activists felt deflated when their efforts were displaced by an old-fashioned deal brokered by the leadership at the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in the week before Brighton.

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Sink

Another thought on Labour’s Rules, some are arguing that there are too many Londoners on the NEC. I don’t know if I agree, with the proposition or the proposed remedy. It would seem that the critical accountability should be political.

My experience of regionally based national committees is that they act as a barrier to the political majority, particularly if the regions elect their own representatives. Anyway, the CLP representatives are no longer so London centric. (There is only one.) …

Stuffed parrots…

I picked this up on my way out of Labour Conference, it’s an interesting review, from a 1st time delegate, a supporter of the Labour Party Marxists. The author talks about the use of late notice and secrecy to manipulate delegates, the lottery of speaker selection, just as well he didn’t see the speaker called in 2014, for waving a baby, and the opacity (and again luck) of reference back on the Policy Forums reports. He talks of the pressure on CLPs to remit their rule changes despite their importance. Worth reading; the platform’s power is no less than it was, we have some way to go. …