The Party have asked 10 questions, some of which seem very similar; I have not had time to decode many of them. I have submitted my answers which are based on the CLPD model answers but in some cases mine are shorter because argument is taken out and in some cases I have added new content. It's critical to ensure conference and the membership remain central to policy making and the manifesto. For more, use the 'read more' button ...
It still surprises me, just how blatant the lies the Tories tell are. They have posted a tweet, boasting of the UK's legislative commitment to workers rights by posting four facts and comparing them, favourably of course, with the EU. As Edmund Blackadder once said, "there's just one problem with this plan ... it's complete bollocks." The fact is whoever authorised this ad. will have known it's a lie and just doesn't care. To see the tweet and my notes on its rebuttal, use the 'Read More' button ...
Is Starmer thought of more highly than Johnson? The short answer, it would seem is "Yes". I have looked at yougov and re-presented their results here. But if he is more highly thought of, why are the Tories ahead in the polls when nearly 100,000 people are dead from the coronavirus. The charts showing each leader's score since Starmer's election to the leadership, a comparative score and a look at the Party scores are overleaf. I have used yougov's figures. ...
I am writing something else about a positive response for the Labour Party to the EHRC’s excoriating report on the Party’s disciplinary process. Unlike many I consider the lack of process and the lack of process controls to be the worst finding, I think that the EHRC has failed to balance Human Rights vs. Equalities law but the Labour Party’s disciplinary process needs to be reformed because it’s dreadful on every dimension. I propose to say,
The Labour Party needs to rewrite its disciplinary code, embedding Article 6, together with the principles of natural justice, innocent until guilty, proportionate punishment, the MacPherson principle, technical & organisational controls to stop the destruction of records or other improper behaviour, robust victim care, fairness to complainants to stop the premature and arbitrary rejection of complaints, rules on how to deal with NEC & Staff, policy about how to exercise the Party’s safeguarding responsibility and inform the police or other responsible persons of any crime, policy on how and why administrative suspensions are to undertaken, prohibiting disguised double jeopardy and guaranteed timescales.
Dave Levy
It’s shameful that a committee i.e. the NEC, where every member is a trade unionist and over one third are activists or full time employees of and within the Unions, that such a piss-poor state of affairs can exist, and do so for so long!
And the process needs to apply to all complaints, and as I think about it, the grounds for punishment, are currently, ” … [action which] is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the Party“, this permits expelling people due to the reputational damage caused by acts of speech, this is wrong. The test should be the contravention of the equalities law or other laws we consider critical such as the PPER or the Bribery Act. i.e. bringing the party into disrepute is not good enough, uncomradely behaviour might be, criminal acts of relevance to politics definitely is, although they should be dealt with, in the first instance, by the police. …
Brexit is not yet done, this, from the Institute of Govt., shows the upcoming deadlines for further agreement. most importantly in the short term, financial services equivalence and data adequacy. Slightly later in the year, is the new definition for food safety documentation required to export British food to the EU and Northern Ireland.
I might say more when I have studied it, but I have written recently about financial services, and extensively on the need for & likelihood of a data adequacy agreement. …
I am standing for a place on the AEIP National Committee. Its role is changing, and I think I have the campaigning and professional experience to help it develop into what it needs to be. If you are a member, you will receive your vote via email shortly. Please use your vote wisely, and for me 😉
I am a Londoner and committed pro-EU activist in the Labour Party ; I supported remaining in the EEC in 1975, and it’s wrong to leave now. This is a lifelong commitment for me.
The need for AEIP is still as great today as we move into a post-Brexit relationship with the EU and that relationship is governed by a Tory Govt and the partnership council. The issues raised by the alternate mandate remain as live today as they were before the treaty on future relationship was signed. I am quite shocked at how quickly even the stuff the Tories supposedly value is falling apart, from fishing, to exports, to creative artists and financial services, the worst predictions are coming true. It seems too few people understood, Johnson’s anglo saxon summary of his industrial policy. The good news is that we can still conduct politics as the treaty is a living treaty with institutions in which we can build coalitions for a better answer. To do that, we need popular support and AEIP is the best instrument for doing that.
I am used to and experienced in arguing for good policy in the Labour Party; this experience will be useful for AEIP as we develop policy and seek support for it. I have written a lot about the economics and justice of the remain case on my blog, http://davelevy.info/tag/brexit/ . I have worked in IT for a series of blue chip companies and am a trained economist. I have expertise in macro-economics, and industrial innovation; I served on one of the predecessor Horizon 2020 incubator committees in the noughties. I am a co-author of the European Union’s software strategy and an expert in data protection law. I believe this experience would be of use to the AEIP national committee.
On Europe and the European Union, I believe in the words of my father, a WW2 veteran, that the EU is a project for peace, it’s been too often forgotten. Free movement and the Charter of Fundamental Rights will come to be seen as the greatest losses, the case on economics was won 18 months ago. AEIP needs to continue to campaign for a better Britain. For more of what I think, I have written a lot about the economics and justice of the remain case here, on my blog, http://davelevy.info/tag/brexit/ …
Consultation is currently taking place as part of Labour's review of the way it makes policy.
Below are set out suggested responses to the questions the party is asking in the consultation. They are also attached as a word document here and a PDF file here.
Responses can be made up till 3 February, either on Labour's website here or emailed to here.
These will be more powerful if you could get a party unit to approve a submission, but there is not much time left.
The Labour Party web site offers the ability to upload the document, if you do this do not forget to add the name of your organisation to this document and to the relevant fields on the website. Otherwise, you can paste each response into the relevant question and amend it if you see fit.
The text of the submission is below/overleaf ...
I made a blog on linkedin; a lot of money left the City on the 4th Jan, the first day of trading after the end of the UK’s brexit transition period. The article has a bit of explanation and a bit of prediction; more could follow and some of the market infrastructure companies and lawyers may need to do so too. While non European finance will likely remain in London, and provide both volume and gravity, the death of LIFFE showed that things can change.
Bloomberg are not so equanimous, and express their views in an article behind a “please pay us” splash screen; it’s a review of the leading merchant bank’s economists talking about the investment opportunities in the UK now that we have an idea of the new framework defining the terms of Trade. Many are neutral, the headline quotes the ‘bear’.
I am not sure, I suspect that the gravitational effect of world trade in non-Euro shares and the trade in currencies will maintain a critical mass giving the skills and infrastructure the reason to stay in London. What’s gone is gone but we need the Government to get on top of the negotiations on “equivalence”, which will determine the banks’ ability to serve both the EU market and EU citizens in the UK. …
Who’d have thought it? After threatening a no-deal Brexit to protect Britiain’s fishing industry, we discover that the goal would seem to have been to make Britain’s fish happy! FFS! The inconvenient truth is that most of the fish caught in British waters are sold in the EU and given the need for more paperwork at the border, the industry is having such severe difficulty in getting their fish to market that they are keeping the boats in port to save the quota until a time when they can sell what they catch. It seems, however, we still have time and resources to chase the Irish away from Rockall. It may not just be fishing, the LSE predicts that UK Exports to the EU will fall by ⅓, total trade by 13% and GNI by 6%.
There is a murmur of evidence that, what economists call, increased friction at the border is causing supply chain disruption for the super-markets and there are coming shortages in the shops, it could of course just be as people enter the new lockdown they stock up to minimise their visits to the shops but if it’s a customs check thing, then we should note that the UK imports half it’s food. In the words of Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, “Don’t panic!”.
I am shocked at how fast it seems to be falling apart but can’t deny myself a bit of schadenfreude about the fish but any lost job is shame and will impact the workers and their families and I remember that offshore fishing is the most dangerous job in the country. I wonder when Richard Corbett and Seb Dance will be calling for us to rejoin and whether real industry will join them.
But Labour’s front bench have hitched their fortunes to making the Brexit deal work. Too late to do any good electorally, and too early to avoid the coming shit storm. We are telling our remaining core vote to once again, concede political and moral space to people who don’t support us; given a choice between blue labour and red clydeside, Starmer’s Labour has made its choice and we’ll have to see if it’s the right one. …
A friend moved this motion, in his case, at their CLP on what we need to support people and even families during the current pandemic. (NPI is Non pharmaceutical intervention.) This can be used at CLP, Labour branch and Union branch meetings. The words of the motion are overleaf/below ...