Some new rules for Labour

The CLPD have some recommended rule changes, they are published on their web site and in this document.

They include allowing the membership a say in the candidates for the Leader and ensuring either the Leader or Deputy is female, reform of the trigger ballot process, democratising the Local Campaign Forums, election of the CLP NCC reps by OMOV, changes to the way in which rule changes are dealt with (2), a democratic Young Labour, introducing proportionality in the length of disciplinary penalties, establishing Conference standing orders, establishing an Ombudsman, a Charter of Member Rights, a Code of Ethics for members, representatives and staff, amendments to motions at Conference, organising disabled members and a conference for disabled members.

ooOOOoo

The deadline has passed; I have inserted an excerpt delimiter, for what was said, use the “read more” button. …  …

Formal Complaint

How to complain to the Labour Party

Dear General Secretary

I witnessed the following actions.

<Describe the events which are in breach of the rules>

I believe this to be in breach of the following Laws, Rules, Procedural Guides and/or Code of Conduct*.

<List the Laws, rules or other policies that have been broken>

I am/am not* a member of the Labour Party. Please treat this as a complaint under Rule 6.I.1.

* List and or delete as appropriate

Double bonus if you can quote the European Convention on Human Rights …

Thoughts

When I felt the need to start shouting on Facebook, I needed a somewhere else to put my less well formed thoughts and diary-like notes. Firstly I experimented with ello, but I later transferred my ello to a wordpress blog site, ello.davelevy.info in July 2016, to make it easier to share and integrate. I moved these posts to this site in March 2018. I categorised my entries in that blog as “thoughts” and category thoughts remains in place. I occasionally still use it. I documented the ello blog as page on this site, and with a carousel entry on the home page.

I continued to use ello for sillyness and stuff and there is a link to it at the bottom of all pages, in the black panel.

Comments are now auto closed after 14 days, there is be a social login plugin to allow you to comment using your own social network logins.

Articles on the thoughts blog are more likely to be unfinished, often representing work in progress, or ideas with insufficient time invested.

Today, I transferred this content from a page to this post. …

Lewisham Momentum

I have not written up my view as to what happened at the Lewisham Momentum AGM, but Rebecca & Jon have written to the officers elected by those who left and went down the pub.

 

Dear comrades,

Following your departure from the Lewisham Momentum AGM and the holding of a meeting to set up a new group at the Amersham Arms on 23 April, we are continuing to advocate a rescheduled, democratic AGM and for it to elect a broad, pluralist, united committee.

The split into two rival groups is weakening the left, in terms of wasted energy, duplication of efforts and most of all the bad blood it has caused on the Lewisham left. We should try to get unity. There is no good reason the two sides cannot be part of a united Labour left/Momentum in Lewisham.

We want to ensure that a united Momentum continues to provide an open, democratic, regularly meeting forum in which members can put forward and where necessary vote on proposals and policy, and decide the direction of the organisation.

We also want to deal with the slanders against us and our activists that have been made on social media and elsewhere in the course of all this, and re-establish normal, comradely labour movement standards of debate.

Some of you may disagree with some of these points. You may have your own issues you want to raise. That is all the more reason to open a dialogue, sit down and discuss.

Moreover this split, while it lasts, should not prevent us from finding ways to work together in the movement and in struggles.

There are lots of things on which can and should cooperate, even as separate groups: the Lewisham East by election; support for the Lewisham Southwark College pay strike and other struggles; opposing Trump’s visit; building stronger left caucuses in the three CLPs…

We therefore invite you to send representatives to sit down with ours (three officers from each side, say) to discuss things. If we can find ways to discuss moving towards unification, that’s good; but we should start by discussing cooperation in the struggle and how we can work together to build the movement. We owe it to the left and labour movement in Lewisham and beyond.

In addition to the immediate need to strengthen struggles and campaigning, no doubt both sides have things to learn from each other. Discussion can also help to dissipate some of the hostility and factionalism generated on the Lewisham left over recent months.

Get in touch and let us know what you think. We are, naturally, happy to discuss the specifics of how to move forward on this.

* Rebecca Lawrence and Jon Johnson, for Lewisham for Corbyn (Momentum) *

 …

Belonging to Momentum

A personal piece of unfinished business from the CLPD National Committee. People’s Momentum’s membership rules,

Momentum’s Rules 5.1

Membership is open to anyone who either was a financial subscriber of Momentum on 10 January 2017, or
(i) Is 14 or over;
(ii) Is a member of the Labour Party and no other political party nor an organisation disallowed by the NCG;
(iii) Agrees to be bound by the rules of Momentum, including its code of ethics and equal opportunities policy; and
(iv) Is accepted for membership by the NCG.

The “is 14 or over” is a tautology as you can’t join the Labour Party until you’re 14. Interesting that they have adopted powers to proscribe organisations not necessarily proscribed by the Labour Party. Most interestingly, if a member before 10 Jan 2017, then you remain a member. …

Brexit and Labour’s 2017 manifesto

Some Lexiters claim that the EU treaties will inhibit a Labour Government if it tried to implement its 2017 manifesto. It is argued that the single market would inhibit industrial policy and the stability and growth pact would inhibit macro-economic policy. I don’t think this is so and have written up my notes on my wiki.

The single market does not inhibit an industrial policy, and the stability and growth pact has no enforcement mechanism for the UK. (Another opt-out which we will lose if we leave and seek to rejoin). 🤔 …

Stitched

Today, my campaigning comrade, Rebecca Lawrence published her views as to what happened at the Lewisham Momentum AGM held at New Cross Learning & then allegedly at the Amersham Arms public bar. Important & accurate things to note from the account are that the 2nd half of the meeting was held in a pubic bar, which would not have held all those who wanted to attend, and no checks as to eligibility were performed. Some claim the majority in attendance at the Library went to the Pub, but no-one knows since they weren’t counted and no-one knows how many stayed in the Library.

The only beneficiary for this piece of sectarianism will be Labour’s right and a small number of self declared left careerists.

Momentum’s gift to the right in Lewisham

The incumbent committee, of which I was a member, have published a statement, together with two witness statements and the text of our complaint to the Momentum National Co-ordinating Group. I mirror them here.

The witness statements make no mention of the fact that the Amersham Arms would not have allowed under age members in the pub. …

Wannacrypt,a story

The NSA’s hack on old Microsoft operating systems is weaponised and released to the internet, most publicly massively impacting the UK’s NHS, which had taken the decision not to move forward from Windows XP, a product for which support by its authors ceased in 2012. This was meant to be quick and a source list for a blog article, but as ever it took too long.

This is a storify I made at the time and have transferred it to this blog and published as at the date created. …